


The Secret Skin

by oceaninoctober



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Consent Issues, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Historical, Mystery, Older Man/Younger Woman, Past Abuse, Pining, Prostitution, Recovery, Romance, Slavery, Slow Burn, but hiding it, sort of medieval setting, they are both adorable
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2018-12-15 06:54:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 45,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11800770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceaninoctober/pseuds/oceaninoctober
Summary: The whole reason that Gorn was who he was - sword on his belt, scars on his side, frightened bedslave on his mind, and all the rest of it - was that, no matter how scared or bewildered he was, if he met someone more lost than himself, he never walked away.***The war is over, and Gorn has survived. He sets out back to his homeland expecting a peaceful respite before beginning his new life as Captain of the King's Guard. But when he intervenes on a prostitute being beaten on the street, he begins an adventure that will bring him into a knot of intrigue, politics, murder - and, if he isn't very careful, - love.And as for the bedslave who calls herself Butter, well, she only wants to survive this baffling new master - and keep the secrets which threaten to unravel her.





	1. Chapter 1

_I've heard of helpless burns on this,_   
_The secret skin, flame-flayed fingers that_   
_Reject the ring, years later, though_   
_Their lovers kiss a smooth expanse._

If Crunt Street didn’t cut straight through the town, it’s unlikely Gorn would have ever set foot there. As it was, he hoped to go a few more miles before making camp, so he kept one hand on his sword (to discourage thieves) one hand over his false coin purse (also to discourage thieves) and his eyes on the end of the road (to discourage prostitutes). 

The evening was blooming over the sky in purple and green, and nocturnal Crunt Street was opening sleep-crusted eyes and twitching; its two main taverns had already acquired a thin film of the scum of the earth and slowly, as soon as each smoky establishment recieved a shadow, a lantern, followed by a pack of laughing, singing women, slunk out to flicker outside it. 

‘Aw, give us a smile, sir, go on - ‘  
‘Ooo, look at those long legs, can a girl touch?’  
‘Fifteen minutes - an hour - all night! Fifteen minutes - ‘

Gorn didn’t pause to see if any of these calls were directed at him; he had too much to do avoiding the gaze of old vendors, crouched like craggy hills over the cobbles. They waved amulets and packets of powder and sets of knives which Gorn dismissed as overly sharp and tinny, and their voices were no less grasping than their haggard arms. Yes, between the vendors, the young, jumpy not-yet-men who were looking for a fight, and the huge ale-stinking louts who cut through the gathering crowd, Gorn had no earspace to spare for loose women.

The noise of a town, he had learned, was much like the noise of battle - it swarmed up around you, but as it got bigger, your world got smaller, until finally the cacophony was merely a rhythmic backdrop to your own movements. 

He was perhaps halfway up the street when the rhythm changed. 

A yowling and cackling erupted up ahead, and Gorn saw a circle forming. It was made of women, ragged bodices and hiked up skirts, and up behind them came curious men. As Gorn leveled with them their laughter dampened, and in the little pause he could hear crying.

Gorn swung about and joined the onlookers, -  
‘It won’t happen again - I swear, I swear - ‘cried a woman’s voice, sodden with tears and drink, but Gorn, though gazing over half the heads, could not see her. A fat, pale, bald man with a gold earring stood at the centre of the crowd and smirked.  
‘Damn right it won’t,’ - a wail - his body jiggled and rippled with the force of his kick, and the wailing stopped on a gasp. Gorn slipped forward a few paces and there she was, scrambling to get up, dirtied bodice and rent skirt, snarling through the tracts of her tears. Her fellow prostitutes backed away from her, and she swayed and the fat man slapped her round the head. ‘I’m finished with you - ‘ he said, and she started to cry again again, doubled over. Men around Gorn started to cheer.  
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry - ‘  
The pimp’s eyes glittered with relish. ‘Never should ha’ bought you - ‘  
She knelt down in front of him - there were whoops from the crowd - her breath came in heaves. ‘I’m sorry - I promise I - ‘ and his blow hit her down to the ground. 

Gorn stepped in among the prostitutes, and they cleared away from him. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. The fat man glared, but Gorn looked down at the tangled dark hair on the ground. ‘Excuse me, mistress, but can I help you leave? Do you want to get out of here?’  
‘Oh ho ho - you have a champion - well if takes a taste of my fist in the street to get you a client I’dha tried it sooner.’ Behind him, Gorn heard some of the rowdiest begin to disperse. He squatted down next to her.  
‘No, I don’t mean for a night. I mean for good. Do you want to leave here, mistress - forever? Or is there somewhere safe I could take you for the night?’ She lifted up her face, then, swollen with crying, and her eyes were desolate and huge and black, covered in smudged black eyepaint. She nodded mutely.  
‘I’ll escort this woman from here, thank you, sir,’ said Gorn rising, and casting his eyes over the crowd. ‘The show is over,’ he said to them. 

When he turned back to the fat man, the fleshy cheeks and temples had begun to stain. ‘She’s mine,’ he said. Gorn bent and pulled the woman up from the ground. Her small hand was cold in his own and she pitched forward and leaned against him.  
‘You said you were finished with her.’  
The man’s smile pushed out his sagging cheeks. ‘Maybe I’ve changed my mind.’  
‘I don’t know what kind of agreement you had,’ said Gorn, ‘but it’s over now.’  
‘You’re not familiar with how we do things here,’ the man said. ‘She’s mine because I own her. She’s my bedslave, and if you try to take her from me my friends here will cut you down as a thief.’ Two men, rather gnarled, appeared at his sides. One was holding a club, the other a sword. Most of the prostitutes, Gorn realised, had retreated, and the circle around them hooted with the familiar spectatorship of men about to watch a brawl. For a moment, Gorn considered his choices. Then the woman sobbed into his shoulder, and he could feel her whole body trembling.  
He said, ‘Very well. I’ll buy her from you.’  
The fat pimp’s purple lips curled into a smirk. The woman’s fingers bit into his arm as she tried to stay upright. ‘I might be able to arrange that.’  
‘Perhaps in privacy?’ Gorn said, and the pimp shrugged and waved him to follow.  
‘Make sure the girls keep working,’ he told the man with the club, who leered and nodded. They left the disappointed crowd but, rather than lead Gorn into the house, the man stopped in the doorway and leaned against the wall. The woman shivered at Gorn’s side, and her master named a price.  
‘Come now - I come from a land without slaves, and even I know that’s unfair,’ he said, feeling that the longer he looked at that greed-polished blob of a face, the harder he would be able to resist striking it as its owner had struck the woman beside him.  
‘What - for one of my best girls? Times are hard now, after the war, you know I can’t part with a working girl for nothing.’ The man’s gold earing jiggled as he spoke, and Gorn barely kept silent, but he felt hands steal round his arm and clutch at him, and he realised suddenly that he was haggling over her value, and with rising horror he accepted the pimp’s counteroffer without second thought. The palm he counted his coins into was greasy, and Gorn got the matter over with as soon as possible, stuffing a deed of ownership into his coat and putting his arm around the woman and walking off. 

He was kept from contemplation of the rash action he had taken by the feeling, as she swayed beside him, that she must be ill. He gathered her close to his side and supported her as he retraced his steps down Crunt Street, back into town. His plans must of course change, he reflected, but he had no desire to cause another scene. They must get well away from this quarter of town before they could talk. The woman pulled his hand up from where it lay on her waist, and kissed it, and put it back. Gorn was too surprised to speak. 

When the sounds and smells of Crunt Street had faded, he pulled her into the ring of light cast by a torch outside a gate. He held her shoulders to steady her and looked down at her face. It was a vivid, pointed face, very pale, and the tears in her eyes had dried, but the eyes still had an odd sheen in the light.  
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked.  
‘Not really,’ she said, and her breath wafted up to him, and that settled his mind. She was drunk. ‘I think I want to check,’ he said. ‘Let’s find someplace to stay the night.’ He put his arm around her again, but paused. ‘What’s your name?’  
She smiled sloppily up at him. ‘Aren’t you gonna change it?’  
Gorn coughed and felt his face heat up. He stared in some dismay at the woman leaning her head against his shoulder.  
‘I’m - ‘ he cleared his throat, ‘Mistress, I’m not looking for a wife.’  
Her laugh wrenched out of her with surprising force, and she pulled away to grin incredulously at him. ‘I know that, Master. I just reckon you’ll call me what you like. Go ahead.’  
She had drawn the attention of several passersby, and they were frowning at her. Gorn nudged her into a walk.  
‘I’ll call you your name,’ he murmured. ‘What is it?’  
‘Wait. Wait - ‘ she rocked against him again and gave another laugh, much littler and softer than the first time. ‘I tell you anything I like, and that’s what you’ll call me?’  
Gorn felt this was rather a loose interpretation of the word ‘name’. ‘What do other people call you?’ he asked.  
‘Other people’ve called me lotsa different things, Master.’ She skipped to keep up, and wobbled, and he slowed his stride for her.  
He said, ‘Well, like what?’  
She trilled ‘Bumpy, Butter, Poppet, Blue - Inky, Raiser, Sweetie, Two.’  
‘That’s - not a rhyme I’ve heard before.’ They were only a few streets away from the inn, respectable and bright, that he remembered passing earlier.  
‘I guess you haven’t spent much time in Ashgurd,’ she said. True enough, he thought, and then - this is an odd game for her to play, poor thing.  
‘Maybe you could choose you favourite. So we can get on.’  
She said, ‘My favourite name,’ almost like it was a question, so he said  
‘Yes. Maybe not ‘Two’, though.’  
‘Butter!’ she declared. ‘Call me Butter.’ She smiled at him.  
‘How’d you get to be called that, Butter?’  
She laughed again, and her hand crept up the front of his shirt, under the coat.  
‘Oh - I go down real smooth - ‘  
His head whipped round to look at her, but her hand slipped away and she was gazing up at the houses they were passing, and she had lost her smile. ‘Creamiest skin in the brothel,’ she said, not without a simple pride. But she ran a hand over her bruising face and added ‘So much for that.’ 

The walked the rest of the way to the inn in silence.

***  
Butter hadn’t been at the inn five minutes before she realised she was perhaps too drunk for this. It was all so bright, and all of the women had their hair pinned up and their arms covered, and - and the food! It was altogether not the sort of place she had been for a long time. And people had begun to look at her. She felt obscurely that if she could walk straight without holding on to New Master’s arm it would, somehow, be better.  
‘Good host,’ said her master. A large man in an apron came forward and looked at her master, and then at her. She saw him give her the Look. This was different from The Look, which was, by a slim majority, the one men mostly gave her, no, the Look normally had a curled lip and a wrinkled nose and, in this case, a furrowed brow and faint air of dismay.  
‘Good sir,’ said the innkeeper, and nothing else.  
‘Have you lodging for a night?’ asked her master.  
‘For a night?’ said the innkeeper. A cold look on a friendly man should not be allowed, Butter thought. It was too unpleasant. ‘Back in the east quarter they rent rooms by the hour.’ 

Now Butter might be drunk, but she knew she wasn’t stupid, so at this rudeness she checked her master’s hands and his mouth and the flesh around the eyes, and none moved but his left hand (his right was around her waist). He took a piece of paper from an inner pocket.  
‘I’m here on King’s business,’ he said, ‘and I’d like a room for the night.’  
‘And I’m the lost princess,’ said the innkeeper, rolling his eyes, ‘and if you think your King’s name means much in a respectable Ashgurdian inn, you’ve not been here long. No whores here.’  
‘Maybe the King’s name doesn’t mean much, but what about the King’s money?’ Here her master (whose eyes had not even tightened, yet) handed over the paper. The innkeeper read it three times and then squinted at her and her master.  
‘There are no beds for two,’ he said. ‘We have only single beds.’ Butter grimaced, but reflected that as long as there was a fire she would not be too uncomfortable on the floor.  
‘Two rooms with single beds, if you please, sir,’ said her master. Was he really so proud?  
‘Very well,’ said the innkeeper, bowing.  
Her Master said, ‘And supper for one, with milk, not wine. And a bath.’  
‘The bath will take some time, sir.’  
‘Draw it in one room and show me and the supper into the other.’ 

Butter let herself be pulled behind her master, and this time found it easy to ignore the stares. When had she last bathed a man? She must not let herself think of those days. She must distract herself; her master was a tall man, and his dark hair was tied back, and where the hair on his head met his beard there were some silver strands. She thought his eyes were dark. His hand on her waist was barely holding her. It had been six years since she had belonged to only one man. 

They came into the bedroom and her hands started to shake. Well, the distraction game isn’t working, she thought. Well, only one thing’s ever helped. Maybe if I make it good enough, the first time, he’ll give me a cup of something. 

The room was all wood, with a good fire burning, and very little but a bed and a chair and a table in it. While her master was shrugging off his pack she moved to the fire and warmed herself, standing where she could see him. He took off his sword belt and laid it, with the sword, on a the table, and then a maid came with his dinner on a tray and told him his bath’d be ready in three quarters of an hour.  
‘Thank you,’ he said, and gave her a coin. This brightened Butter’s hope for a cup of wine (or something) after they’d got through the business at hand.  
‘Well, Butter,’ he said, ‘perhaps you ought to drink this first of all.’  
Could it be - but it was milk, in the tumbler he passed her. ‘Thank you, master,’ she said, and sipped. He looked at her expectantly, and she didn’t want to keep him waiting, so she downed the milk - hoping she wouldn’t have to be completely sober by the end. 

He took back the cup and fiddled with the food on the table while she stood awkwardly by, milk churning in her. He was rifling in his pack. What had he brought with him? Did he have weapons other than a sword? If he was going to kill her, why had he brought her here? But there are all sorts of wounds you can hide. He isn’t going to kill me, she thought with rising bile, he’ll keep me alive but he’ll - 

He turned around and she stumbled backwards and saw that he was holding a little box.  
‘Bruise balm,’ he said. ‘For your face.’  
Butter took a great, shaking breath. ‘Ah. That’s all,’ she said. He walked towards her and she held herself still and let him turn her towards the flickering fire. She couldn’t close her eyes, she had to watch him, but as he daubed ointment onto her skin his gaze kept flicking back to meet hers. She didn’t know how to respond. Perhaps something was expected of her and she didn’t realise. Dread curled in her stomach. When he pulled away, she smiled.  
‘Thank you kindly,’ she said, and tried to make her voice light.  
‘He kicked you,’ the master said. Butter blinked. It’s true, the ache in her side was growing as the gin ebbed away. ‘Perhaps you could - er - remove your bodice - so that I can make sure you are not hurt.’  
Ah. So that was the way of things. Why didn’t he just say it?  
She smiled at him and turned her back, gathering her hair to one side. ‘Maybe you could help me,’ she said. He cleared his throat, and then she could feel his heat behind her, though he did not move as close as she expected. His fingers fumbled once, and then he untied the knots (designed, after all, for speed) quickly and stepped back. Why had he stepped back?

She pulled off her bodice and turned to face him.  
‘Untuck your chemise - would you?’ he asked gruffly, and she tossed her corset on the bed, tugged her chemise out from under her skirt and was on the point of pulling it up when he caught up her wrist. ‘Would you - allow me?’ he asked. This was confusing, and she didn’t like feeling helpless, but she stood still. He gathered her chemise up under her breasts, baring only her midsection, and pulled down her skirt so that he could inspect her stomach. He smelled like rain. ‘Take a deep breath,’ he said, and she complied, hoping that soon desire would kindle in his eyes, that she could be sure she would not spend the night on the street.  
‘Deeper,’ he said, and she did, the bruise on her side twinging slightly. ‘Does that hurt?’ he asked.  
‘No,’ she said. His eyes were gray, and it was odd, the way they kept looking at her face.  
He said, ‘How big is the no?’  
‘I - ‘ Butter blinked and almost pulled away. ‘Well, I guess it’s small. But I’m fine. No ribs broken or anything.’ But he let her chemise fall back down and she fluttered with panic. ‘I’m really full of life, master, you don’t have to worry about a thing - ‘  
‘Good,’ he said, and pulled out the chair from the desk. ‘Come eat.’ 

Butter stared at him. His eyes did not look like he was joking. Then she loosened the drawstring of her skirt and pulled it down, so that only her thin chemise kept her covered, and she walked across the room like that, and sat down. The plate was piled high with potatoes and mutton and other good things, things with names she had to dredge up from the bottom of her memory, and she didn’t remember to ask permission until the food was all churned up by her knife.  
‘I’m sorry,’ she said - her master was sitting by the fire, looking at it, and he glanced up. ‘Is - ‘ she felt suddenly foolish. ‘Is this alright?’  
‘Eat away,’ he said. ‘Then I have some questions.’  
Her stomach dropped. She put down the eating knife and spoon and turned towards him.  
‘Ask me now, please.’ Else I won’t be able to eat for worrying, she thought. 

Her master frowned down at the floorboards.  
‘I’ve never been ill of the trade,’ she said. ‘I won’t give you the pox.’ He looked up, wide-eyed.  
‘No,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t thinking of that.’  
She said, ‘Oh,’ and tried to figure out which board he had been staring at. Her food settled uneasily in her stomach.  
‘Do you have anywhere you’d like me to take you, Butter?’  
‘I don’t understand you,’ she said. He rubbed his forehead.  
‘You wanted to leave that brothel. Is there anywhere else you’d prefer to be? I’m traveling north.’  
The food and the bruise salve all made sense now, and Butter’s hand started to tremble again.‘You’re going to sell me off,’ she said. Dark assessing eyes, slim smiles, the clink of coins. She was going to retch.  
‘No! You need never be sold again.’  
Butter caught her breath, which had somehow got away from her. ‘You’ll keep me.’  
‘You really have nowhere to go?’ He looked - he looked concerned. Did he want to get rid of her? But he had sounded sincere, when he said she wouldn’t be sold.  
She said ‘There’s nowhere,’ and hoped it would be enough. God knows it was true.  
Her master nodded, slowly. ‘Food’s getting cold,’ he said.

***  
Gorn led the poor girl to the room with the bath after she had eaten, hoping fervently and fruitfully that no one would see her all half-naked in the corridor. Once in the room, firelight flickering on the bathwater, he said ‘I’ll bandage up that bruise on your side when you’re done with your bath.’  
‘My bath?’ she asked, and her hand crept up to the ribbon round her neck. She had a habit of touching the edge of it that he had already noticed.  
‘You know,’ he said lightly, hoping to cheer her ‘the round thing, full of water. Just there.’  
She winced. ‘Sorry, master. I just thought it was for you.’  
He kept his tone gentle and tried to hide his rising worry ‘No - it's all yours.’  
She was toeing off her shoes. He noticed they were flimsy things, thin leather with small cork heels. ‘To wash the brothel off me,’ she said.  
‘I assume they had baths in the brothel.’ He said, and left her to it. 

Alone in the corridor, Gorn allowed himself to begin to think. Here was a life now dependent on him. Again. And he had been counting on a few days between charges, between laying down all the lives that had rested on him back at Turmagil and picking up his new responsibilities. Ah well. Tess’d always said he couldn't eat ham in front of a pig. Tess, now. It's clear he would lose a few days on the road if he were to travel with Butter, which he thought he must do. Can't abandon her, will have to find a new life for her, he thought, and then - I’ll take her with me to Tess. Tess’ll know how to help.

With this decision easing his heart, he came into the first bedroom to see the serving girl clearing away Butter’s supper. She was of a height with Butter, he thought, and neither of them had much flesh on them.  
‘Good mistress,’ he said, ‘could I ask you a few questions?’  
‘Well, of course, sir, - how can I help?’  
Gorn crossed his arms and thought for a moment. ‘Do you live in the inn?’ He asked.  
She laughed ‘Near enough, sir. I live across the courtyard.’  
‘And boots - do you own any good, thick boots?’  
She frowned ‘I do, sir.’  
‘What about a thick coat, or a traveling cloak?’  
‘I - well, I do.’  
‘Woolen sleeves?’  
‘Yes. Why are you asking me, sir?’  
‘Well you see, mistress, the lady I'm protecting has had to leave home suddenly. She hasn't got much in the way of clothes packed, and we are leaving early tomorrow. I was hoping you could sell me what was needful.’  
The serving maid stared at him. I'm sorry to report that her mouth was rather open. Gorn smiled - helplessly, it must be said. ‘Oh,’ he added, and plucked his coin purse from his shirt. ‘I can pay you in gold.’  
The maid shut her mouth. ‘How much gold?’

So it was that Gorn, carrying a large bundle, knocked on the door to Butter’s room half an hour later.  
‘Who’s there?’ She cried.  
‘Its Gorn,’ said Gorn, and realised he hadn't actually told her his name. But the bolt was drawn back.  
She called ‘Come in, master.’ He pushed open the door. 

She was standing by the bath, in the firelight, with a towel wrapped around her. Gorn stared at the fire, willing himself to behave like the grown man he was. A pretty pair of legs and you're fourteen again, Gorn, and she's a lady needing help!  
‘I came to give you these,’ Gorn said, setting the bundle down on the floor. ‘And to say goodnight.’ He’d make a quick getaway and stop intruding.  
‘Won’t you sit down, master?’  
Gorn fell onto the edge of a chair, never breaking eye contact with the mantelpiece. ‘Maybe you could close your eyes,’ she said, and it was with relief that he did. He could hear her, then, moving softly around the room, but he fixed his mind on the cracking of the fire. 

Then there was warmth between his knees. Something hot and soft pressed against his inner leg and he opened his eyes to see Butter kneeling before him. She was kissing up his thigh. She reached for his belt buckle and he managed to put a hand on her head to stop her but she only ducked down at his touch and made her kisses open-mouthed and desperate. Warm breath on him, shadows through her chemise. His belt was undone.

He said ‘Stop it.’ 

She flinched away and swung back, scrambling to the other side of the fireplace.  
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, and her eyes flickered up at him before settling on the ground. She knotted her hands together on her lap. ‘Tell me how I might please you.’

Gorn allowed himself a moment. He rebuckled his belt. Words felt heavy to him, heavy to push out of the tangle in his stomach.  
‘I didn't come to you for that,’ he said. She looked up. Gorn swallowed and carried on. ‘I just came to give you those,’ be pointed back at the pike on the ground, ‘and to bandage your side like I said.’  
She nodded. Another thought occurred to Gorn and he had to swallow again. ‘There are some under things in the pile. Maybe you could put them on. If you’re - if you aren’t - ‘ but she nodded, and he turned away from her while she sorted through the clothes. Gorn looked at the mantle. He didn’t dare close his eyes again. 

She was passive, if watchful, under his hands as he bandaged the bruising on her side. She was too thin, frighteningly pale, ribs like a marble staircase. He hoped Tessa’d know how to help her. 

‘I got you those clothes for travelling,’ he said, once he’s tied off the bandage and she’d let the chemise drop. ‘Do you think you’ll be up to an early start, tomorrow?’  
‘Whatever you want, master. I’ll be ready.’  
‘My name is Gorn,’ he said gently, trying to catch her eye.  
She looked up, and put her small hand on his arm. ‘Is there anything I can do for you tonight, Master Gorn?’

Gorn felt his stomach turn cold. ‘Just rest,’ he said, and, troubled, left to follow his own advice. 

***  
There’s no way I can fall asleep now. Butter tossed and turned in the bed. It was too cold between the sheets. He had left the key to the room on the table by mistake, and seeing it, her first impulse had been to lock the door. She hadn’t been in bed five minutes before reflecting - better not, don’t want him angry if he tries to get in tomorrow morning. She climbed out and unlocked it and settled down again. She wondered where he got those clothes, sturdy, warm stuff, and the used boots. Maybe from the last girl. Maybe he does away with one of us after another and gives us the same clothes. Is that his step? 

She sat up, pressing the blanket to her chest, and listened. A group, a loud group going down the corridor. Rowdy, drunk young men, if she knew anything. She got up and locked the door. 

Of course he’s not going to kill me, she thought, as the sheets began to warm to her heat. He barely touched me tonight. But then - he barely touched me tonight. I probably disgust him. Perhaps he’s having second thoughts? An untouched bedslave, Butter, you’ve - you’ve done it now. Or you haven’t done it, more like, she thought, and tried to smile through the fear. I’ll make sure he knows I’m worth keeping around, she thought, and did her best to stop the thinking there.

But Butter was normally hard at work at this time of night, at work for hours, and as she lay there worrying, sleep would not come.


	2. Chapter 2

Gorn was up and ready before even the serving girl had opened the shutters, and so the grey morning light did not filter into the dark corridor when he tapped at Butter’s door.

There was no answer, but the door was open. She’s gone, he thought in a great rush of relief. But as he peered through, he saw her in the bed, black hair sprawled on the pillow, and her burgundy necklace a dark bar across her throat. He approached the bed and saw her hand twitching on the coverlet as she slept.  
‘Butter,’ he said. Then, slightly louder, ‘Butter.’

She stirred, sniffed, stretched, and jumped out of her skin. She was on the far corner of the bed in a flash, hugging pillow to her and shivering as she stared at him. Gorn blinked, but knew better than to move.   
‘Good morning, Butter,’ he said in slow tones. ‘It’s Gorn, remember?’  
‘I can be ready in a moment,’ she whispered.   
‘Ready for what?’  
‘To leave. An early start, right?’ she threw the pillow down on the bed and raced past him, grabbing up clothes as she went.  
‘I’ll - I’ll get us some breakfast, then,’ Gorn said bemusedly, and left her to it. 

***  
What a dunce he must think her! Yet Butter had noticed that he gave her just as much of the bread and jam as he took for himself. They chewed as they walked, Butter in heavy boots worn down in odd places, under a thick green cloak, and Master Gorn with a large pack on his back, a long leather coat, and his big swinging sword at his side. 

The town began to wake as they walked through - shutters opening, smoke rising from chimneys - even, from behind the walls of a garden they passed, a serving maid singing. But these punctuated a grey silence, as they wove through backstreets, a calm waiting blank like breathing, so that gradually the thousand questions and fears that had whirled in her head since she woke stilled. 

A cat ran across their way, carrying a whole chicken carcass in its mouth. Butter watched it dart to a corner behind a wagon, where two baby cats - kittens? Not quite kittens, a bit too sleek and tall for that, she decided - but still baby cats - were waiting for their mama.  
‘Never up early enough to see this stuff,’ she said.  
‘What stuff d’you mean?’ asked the tall man, and Butter realised she was standing, watching the happy cats, and not walking. She checked his eyes, his hands, his stance, but he was standing with her and his thumbs were hooked into the straps of his pack. Safe, for now.  
‘Oh - the world, I guess.’ she said, and he smiled, and they kept walking. 

Soon enough they cleared the town. The sun was properly out, now, and they tramped along the main road with waggons and the occasional messenger on a horse passing them. He had stepped so that she walked in between him and the woods, on the grass verge. She wondered if he meant to push her into the trees when the road was empty and suddenly the peace was gone. He didn’t speak, hadn’t spoken for an hour, just strode on beside her. His face, when she glanced sideways at him, looked blandly up the road, revealing nothing, intending nothing. 

What am I supposed to do with this man?  
Is he going to hurt me? Should I be more bold? If I ran, would he kill me if he caught me? Would he -   
She forced herself to attend to the trees. Pine needles. She had forgotten about pinecones - that was how they spread, wasn’t it? Trees and more trees. They smelled nice. And then something shot up a trunk - a squirrel! Butter had to bite off an exclamation, looking back up at master Gorn. She put her hands into her pockets.This couldn’t go on.  
‘So,’ she said, drifting away from him slightly, ‘how do you feel about talkative people?’  
He looked surprised, but - was he pleased, that she had spoken? He smiled.  
‘I’m a quiet man myself. I like to hear other people talk.’   
Butter looked at a small pine tree with bright green tips, just ahead. ‘And - talkative whores? How bout them?’  
‘Do whores talk about different things than - people who aren’t whores?’  
‘I - ‘ surprise, followed by a rush of memories, reddened Butter’s face. ‘That - well - that depends. Sometimes.’

He was horribly silent for a moment. The he said, ‘I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Talk away. Talk as much as you like.’   
‘I’m not embarrassed,’ she said, and lifted her blush-stained head. 

***  
He had been ungentle in some way, he was sure, because she didn’t talk after that at all. Gorn wondered what she was thinking. This part of their journey required little attention for a man used to marching, and so he had nothing to do other than wish he was better at conversation. Tess would have no problem - she could always talk to anyone, make them feel fine. He wondered what Tess would do with Butter, to make it all alright. Find her a job, maybe, in someplace. He wondered what Butter would be good at, if she would make a baker or a washerwoman or help out in the dairy. He couldn’t quite imagine her doing any of those things. 

So, after a little while of pondering, he asked, ‘What can you do, Butter?’  
She blinked, and smiled, and took her hands out of her pockets. ‘Anything you want,’ she said.   
God damn it! How he wished Tess was here. ‘I mean - other than - entertain men.’  
‘Oh. If you mean around the house - I’m a fair cleaner. I can learn most anything pretty quick. Whatever you need.’ Her hand crept up to the ribbon round her neck. ‘Are you - is your house very grand?’  
‘No - soldier’s lodgings. But I meant - what can you do to make coin?’  
Her posture was very straight and brittle, he noticed. Maybe her side was hurting her.   
‘“Entertaining” is probably the best way, master.’  
‘Hmm,’ he said, taking a moment. He remembered her, crying on Crunt Street. ’And how do you fancy it?’  
Her eyes widened and she looked back at him. ‘The entertaining? I - ’ Butter moved a little closer as they walked, so their arms were brushing. ‘It’s not so bad,’ she said, ‘not if they all look like you - so tall! And with such a big - sword - ‘  
Gorn barked a sharp laugh -  
‘Are these the things only whores speak of, Butter? I’ve never in my life been spoken to like this!’ He could not laugh, though, when her head dropped down and he could see her neck redden.  
‘I'm sorry to have displeased you,’ she said, and he huffed at himself.   
‘There now,’ he said ‘That's why I don't talk much. You see I can't speak without offending someone.’ 

She was silent; He’d scared her off talking again, and Gorn was sorry for it. They continued along the road, which thickened in traffic as the sun straightened up in the sky. Carts full of day laborers trundled away from town, with messengers and middle-aged women in red bonnets with large baskets moving towards it. And, of course, soldiers - the crest of Vallera newly joined with that of Ashgurd on their shoulders.   
‘No one’s ever talked sweet to you?’ Said Butter.  
‘What?’  
She pulled her cloak round her, ‘You've never had a whore, before?’  
‘No, - no, I have,’ he said, ‘a very long time ago. But I can't seem to remember much talking.’  
It was only after he had said this, the whole unpleasant train of memories from his green youth running in his mind, that it occurred to him that he could have refused to answer her question. Ah well - Tess’d said all those years ago that he would tell a pig he was eating chops for dinner, if it only asked him, and it was too late to start dissembling now.  
‘But you don't mind talking,’ she continued, and he was pleased beyond belief to hear her voice.  
He said, ‘No!’   
‘Cause the thing is sometimes a thought just rushes out when I'm not paying attention,’ she said. ‘But that angers some people. I try my best but I thought I'd warn you.’  
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I wouldn't worry about that. I'd rather know what a person’s thinking.’  
‘Can I - would it annoy you if I asked you questions?’  
A carriage hurtled down the road, followed by four soldiers on horseback, and Gorn put an arm across Butters shoulders to nudge her further into the verge, shielding her.  
‘I'm really quite hard to annoy,’ he said.  
She raised her eyebrows at him, delicate incredulity dancing across her face, and he found himself smiling at that - a little half grin that challenged her to try.  
She held his gaze. ‘Why are the roses on the flags bleeding?’  
Gorn blinked. ‘It's the new Ashgurdian flag,’ he said, ‘if you remember, it was three drops of blood, before. But now Vellera rules, they added the Velleran rose.’ It had been around for a year and and a half - had she been so confined?  
‘There's a new king, in Vallera,’ she said, ‘What's his name again?’  
‘King Ransom, they call him. I reckon he's got a lot of royal names he doesn't really use. Like you,’ he smiled again, cause it had worked before.  
‘Ha,’ she said. Then, ‘How’d the old king die?’  
Gorn wondered if Ashgurd had stopped news, during the war. Messengers sure had a hard enough time getting to Turmagil. ‘Illness, they said. It was a long time coming.’ Butter nodded - she was looking pale, and Gorn decided to stop at the next town to give her a rest. She wasn't used to travel.  
‘And when he died, King Ransom stopped the war.’  
‘Soon as he could,’ said Gorn, ‘wasn't too hard - they were winning, and for a while beforehand he'd been doing most of the ruling.’  
‘So then,’ a mule and cart were pulled to the side; something about the wheel was wrong. Gorn and Butter split to pass it on opposite sides, and when she rejoined him she said ‘So then, why hadn't he stopped the war sooner? If he was ruling behind the throne like that?’  
‘I don't think he was trying to rule before his time,’ Gorn said, ‘it was more like, he was doing what his dad couldn't do. Helping him. But the old king wouldn't end the war. Far as I can tell, he wanted revenge.’  
Maybe they'd just sit beside the road and finish off that bread, instead of carrying on to the next town - Butter didn't look so good. ‘Revenge?’   
‘You know, cause of his daughter. Are you hungry?’  
‘His daughter? What do you mean, his daughter?’

She was agitated, her right hand grasped her left tightly and she was walking ahead of him with jerky steps, red spots on her cheeks. Gorn slowed up.  
‘It’s been near enough three hours of walking, Butter. Let’s sit down. We can talk more after food.’ 

She stopped, and walked back to him, as if coming to heel. But she looked him up and down and said ‘You don’t need to rest.’  
Gorn was relieved she hadn’t clammed up again. He said, ‘Maybe not,’ and led them into the shade of the woods.  
‘I’m fine, let’s keep going. My ribs hardly even ache. Let’s go.’ He chose a tree and lay out his coat for them to sit on, and when he sat down and patted the place next to him, she didn’t argue anymore, and he ripped up the last of the loaf from the inn, and they ate it.

She seemed as though she’d rise up as soon as the last crumb had disappeared, but though the trembling he had noticed in her hand was gone, the paleness wasn’t, so Gorn leaned his   
head back against the tree behind them (an oak) and closed his eyes.  
‘If you want to know about the big world, and the war, like you seem to, I’ll just tell you what I know. But you must stop me if I grow tedious.’

She settled down beside him; he could feel her warmth and hear the folds of skirts coming to rest. He opened one eye and looked at her as sternly as this undignified expression allowed.’Butter - I mean that. I’m no good with words. Stop me if I go on too long. Ask me questions. Interrupt.’ She nodded, again with that skepticism around her forehead, and he settled back and pretended she was a captain he was making a report to.  
‘To answer you about revenge I think I need to talk about a time about, oh, thirteen or fourteen years back. Ashgurd was selling iron at a furious rate and Vellera was selling it back to them as trinkets and tools and weapons, and most people were satisfied with this arrangement.   
‘Then Vellera’s little princess clean disappears while inspecting an Ashgurdian mine on some state visit, and everyone goes mad. Ashgurd cleans out the whole mine, makes a show of killing most of the mine-slaves on duty that day. Best part of year, people are looking for her or her body, in both kingdoms. Then Ashgurd gets uncomfortable about the soldiers over their border, even though they say they’re just there to help the search. They say, that’s all very well but can you please withdraw, and the soldiers do.  
‘But the king in Vellera won’t give up. He gets everyone looking out for the princess. I remember it well, - she was supposed to have red hair and two moles on her neck - that’s what the town criers all said. She was a bit of a story, now, all very sad, but no one other than the king ever seemed to think she’d come back. At some point he got a bee in his bonnet about Ashgurd kidnapping her, or covering up her death, so he asked to bring more soldiers over the border and interview as many people as possible, make one last push.  
‘Ashgurd says no, I don’t think so, and around this point the Queen dies. The thing is, I liked our King. He was good - but he was grieving. Cause then he declares war on Ashgurd.’

Gorn opened his eyes, and saw Butter breathing rather fast, and tracing the outline of her ribbon necklace in that way she had, and he decided she needed a bit more of a rest, so he carried on.

‘It was a little complicated because Vellera got their iron from Ashgurd and Ashgurd got their swords and spears from Vellera. And you might know that there were three little patches of land, farmland with a castle and a town in, that were Valleran burghs, right in the middle of Ashgurd. The kingdoms were never made for fighting eachother.   
‘So Vellera had to get their ore from another kingdom, and Ashgurd had to get weapons from someplace else, and burnish up their blacksmiths. But the war carried on, slowly and surely, until the war became about the war, and picked up lots of different causes - slavery, for one, and the burghs, and the ways mines were run, and how strong Vallera was, until people lost sight of why it began in the first place and just fought because they had something to fight for.   
‘I think there was a lot of change up back in Vallera, you know, - there were a few years where Ashgurd looked like winning, but the Prince - that’s king now - figured out a conspiracy where some of his officials were funding weapons trade to Ashgurd, and making a profit off of Ashgurd victory, and matters never fully explained. But because of it the Prince got put in charge of the army, and the war favoured him, even though he was all for peace. And if what they say is true, he kept after his father to make peace and make peace, and then his father died, near enough three years ago, and King Ransom made his peace. He had a funeral for his sister, I hear, and is doing everything proper, and I think things look brighter, now.’ 

Gorn opened his eyes and met Butter’s grave glance.  
‘But they used to be friends,’ she said, with dark troubled eyes, ‘the two kingdoms. And because of that pointless princess, who I'm sure no one cared about that much anyway, thousand of people died.’  
‘Well, I don't know about that. The king cared for her. Imagine having your little girl just gone, and no one knows why.’   
‘That's no reason to kill of other people’s fathers and brothers.’   
She was pleating and unpleating folds of her dress.  
Gorn said, ‘Grief is funny like that, I guess. Made the king kind of crazy.’  
‘Hard times harden hearts,’ she said mechanically, and Gorn gave her a long look.  
‘That's about the length of it,’ he said.  
***  
Gorn helped Butter to her feet and put his coat back on, shouldering his big pack. She felt bad, watching him carry everything, and not helping with anything. He had been so calm and so hard to read. She thought perhaps he might have some kind of plan, some long game he'd played before, and though his open amused gaze made her wish this wasn't so, she decided it was probably best to appear complacent but remain, of course, watchful as ever. She must learn his desires and anticipate them. The trick was to make them think that you wanted what they wanted, that it was your idea, and that they were doing you a favor all along. 

What did he want? Odd though it seemed, Butter thought he might want to please her. She'd had a few like him before, much more common in the days past, days she must ignore. And while his words were still racing through her and she had to fight the trembling and the coldness in her limbs, she'd better focus on him - find out his flavor of desire.

It took boldness, but as they walked she took his hand. He looked down at her, and when she smiled, he tucked her hand into the loop of his arm -   
‘You just hang onto me if I'm going too fast,’ he said, and she said   
‘Well, I will,’ without any intention of doing so.

The road was proper busy, now, large carriages rumbling and carts with barrels or baskets trundling. There was a steady trickle of foot travelers too, some of them pilgrims, but most were in the drab clothes of slavery.  
‘It's not market day,’ Butter said before she knew it.  
‘No,’ said Gorn. At this quelling response Butter reigned back her questions and only stared with wide eyes around at their fellow travelers, trying to figure out what, without pack or owner, they were doing in broad daylight in the road.  
‘They're trying to get to Vellera,’ said master Gorn, and she started. ‘King’s declared a year of favor. Slaves are free once they get over the border.’  
‘But it’s broad daylight. And a main road. That’s no way to escape.’ Butter immediately felt her stomach drop the way it does right before the waking from a nightmare. She hadn’t meant to sound like she was thinking about escape. She wasn’t a runner - truly - not anymore.   
‘It’s the king,’ said Gorn, and his voice drew Butter out of her cloud of dismay. ‘He offered a little compensation for any owner who releases a slave to travel.’  
Butter thought about this. ‘So he’s buying them,’ she said, ‘dirt cheap.’  
‘I suppose,’ said Gorn, ‘but he doesn’t act like he owns them.’  
Butter, looking at her hand folded gently into the crook of Master Gorn’s arm, knew that made no difference.


	3. Chapter 3

She was tired, this little woman next to him, and she didn’t like the weaving in and out of people - she was trying her best, but as noon approached, her grip on his arm tightened and her face paled. If she could hold on a little longer, he’d have some food and perhaps an easier journey into the afternoon for her.  
‘Little lady,’ he said, and she looked up and he could see her pull a smile towards her from the box where she kept such things, things like the hands on his chest or gazes that lingered on his legs. He was, for a moment, filled with an obscure pain, but he smiled back and said ‘do you like to sing?’  
‘I’ve a ready voice,’ she said, ‘but I reckon it sounds better after a few bottles.’  
‘Most things do,’ said Gorn. ‘I fancy a walking song,’ he said, ‘Passes the time. Do you know the one about the mountains?’  
‘I think so,’ she said, and Gorn said ‘Mmh,’ and started to sing. 

She didn’t join right away, but when she did, her rough voice never seemed to agree with his on the finer points of melody. A few fellow travellers joined in, and her pace picked up, and they sang their way to the next town. 

Here the main road cut through a cluster of wood-shingled buildings, but the traffic slowed as those halting here turned off to the town square. Gorn realised that his usual tactic of fixing his eyes on the place he wished to go and moving in that direction (people usually melted away before him) did not work so well when he had someone much smaller on his arm. 

A group of children ran in between them and the wagon in front of them on the way into the town square, then a man leading a donkey. Peddlers selling water bottles and travel belts and apples crowded on either side, and the smell of sweat and dust clouded up around them. Gorn longed for the cool of the wooded paths he would be on tomorrow. 

Then he felt Butter slip her arm from his. She lagged slightly behind him. He lifted his arm to her - ‘Best hold on,’ he said, then he thought - enough is enough. She took his hand and he twined their fingers together, pulling her close behind him, then plunged through the crowd. He ducked a wagonner and, running his hand over the horse’s flank so as not to fright it, wove past the waggon - three wagons - a group of pilgrims made way for him and two peddlers scurried in the face of his long legged determination - and they were in the square. 

Poor Butter was panting when he let go her hand, and he experienced a small pang of remorse.  
‘Water,’ he said, clapping a hand on her back, ‘we’ll get you some. The well’s just there, if you wait and fill this up - ‘ he swing his water bottle to her, ‘I’ll go find us some food.’  
‘Alright,’ she said, and curtseyed - curtseyed! - before walking off. She was a strange one. He missed her weight on his arm. 

***  
She’d only just managed to figure out how the well worked - you had to crank a handle to bring up a bucket, which was empty the first time, and then far too heavy, and she tilted it over the open mouth of the water bottle and soaked the cuffs of the new sleeves master Gorn had got for her. Butter couldn’t remember ever having done this before, and what was worse was that there was a line of people waiting behind her for water - someone laughed, and the half filled bucket clanked off the edge and down the shaft. Butter held her water bottle tightly and walked at random back into the square, stomach swooping. When she’d got it filled she practically sank against the wall in relief, wringing out her cuffs in the hope that he wouldn’t notice.

Her heart faltered when she thought of an afternoon like the morning just gone. She'd never walked so much in her life, and she thought it would take only a few more hours for her new master to realise how utterly weak and useless she was. She had to please him tonight. 

So, although her dry throat croaked for water, she kept the stopper firmly in place as she waited for master Gorn to appear. He had told her to fill the bottle - and besides, when he had given her water before, he had poured it into the cap like a cup. Maybe he didn’t want her mouth on his bottle. She wouldn’t risk it. 

Panic, which the singing and marching had distracted her from, began to bubble up as people around her threw her curious glances and master Gorn still had not arrived. A man with a pale mustache was filling his water bottle at the well and he kept looking up at her, so she turned her back. What if Gorn never came for her? What should she do?

His grizzled head, appearing above the crowd, sent a gush of relief through her, quickly followed by dismay - she shouldn’t let herself relax around him, not yet while he was so unknown!

‘Hello!’ he said, and she smiled. He came easily up to her, holding another water bottle and a pile of plaited straw. Butter focused on looking pleased to see him. ‘Sorry to keep you on your feet,’ he said, ‘But I got you this - ‘ he swung the water bottle off its shoulder and handed it to her.  
‘Oh, why thank you,’ she said.  
‘Also I - uh, I got you this. For the sun.’ He held out the pile of straw, and when Butter, baffled, took it, she realised it was a floppy wide-brimmed hat, the kind she’d seen field laborers or waggon drivers wear.  
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘That was kind.’ She put it on her head. Gorn looked at her, and then said, sorrowfully:  
‘Oh. It’s a hat for a man.’  
Before she knew it she was laughing, and before she could stop it, he was laughing too.  
‘I will thank you anyway,’ she said, looping her arm through his. ‘It does keep the sun off.’  
‘Ay, that it does,’ he was till chuckling. ‘But Tess will know what to get you. Here - if you give me that, perhaps you could hold this?’ He took both water bottles, one heavy and one light, away from her and passed her a brown paper package to hold while he filled up her own water bottle at the well. Butter watched while a matron, smiling benignly at him, helped him ladle water into the bottle. They chatted for a moment there, by the side of the well. And Butter settled herself in the knowledge that, wild and strange as her master seemed with his hair and his coat and his solitary sword, respectable people thought he was respectable. She remembered the papers he had pulled out in the inn. What, she thought, is he doing with me, then?

‘Who is Tess?’ she asked, when he came back, exchanging her water bottle for the package and taking her arm again.  
‘Have I not mentioned?’ he exclaimed as he led them out of the square. ‘Tess’s my sister. We’re going to visit her.’  
‘I see,’ said Butter, and took a swig of her water to quell her rising frustration. She was tired, and hungry, and hot, and her master left her guessing at every turn. 

He led her out of the town, to where the main road fed out, but instead of striking out to walk again, they stood there eating the meat pies that were in the brown package, and watching the traffic. The food made her feel better. She decided that, if the last time he’d had a whore was years ago, so far back that he didn’t know how to treat one, that was all to the good. She would just have to give him what he didn’t know he wanted, and after all, didn’t she know better than he did? So the days would be confusing, but the nights would make sense of them.

‘Excuse me, good mistress, good master,’ said a small voice.

Butter and Gorn turned to survey a small damsel, no more than ten years old. She was dressed with devastating neatness in the clothes of a little tradesperson, with a basket over her chubby arm, and she looked anxiously up at them.  
‘Are you travelling to Agfeld?’ she asked, looking at Butter.  
‘Reckon we’ll pass through it, little lady. Is that where you’re headed?’ She nodded.  
‘I’m goin’ to be prenticed to my aunt,’ she said, taking a step forward. ‘She’s a baker. But the waggon only took me this far. Ma said to find some people to travel with. She said a husband an’ wife.’ Butter could feel her cheeks going what she imagined a painful red. I swear, I haven’t blushed in years before I met this man! I’m glad this hat means he can’t see my face. The little girl looked speculatively up at them. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘can I go with you?’  
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Gorn, easily. Why did nothing ever bother him? ‘What’s your name, young madam?’  
‘Padria,’ said the little girl, grandly. Then, with a small shrug of her cotton-clad shoulders. ‘You’n call me Paddy.’  
‘I’m pleased to meet you, Paddy. I’m Gorn. This - ‘ he put his hand on Butter’s back, lightly, and Butter shivered. ‘Is Mistress Butter.’ The little girl nodded, gravely, trying to make a good impression with strangers, and it strained at Butter’s heart.  
‘Why are you by yourself?' she asked all the sudden. ‘Why’d your ma let you come all this way? Parents ought to keep hold of their children.’ She crossed her arms tightly in front of herself, aware suddenly of the dismayed silence. She said, ‘They just ought to.’ Paddy’s mouth was helplessly open.  
‘Butter,’ said Gorn, ‘maybe Paddy’s ma has a baby at home. It’s not so easy for folks to travel.’  
‘My ma’s dead.’ said Paddy. She crossed her arms, unconsciously mirroring Butter’s stance. ‘My aunt’s waiting for me,’ she said defensively. Butter couldn’t speak.  
‘I’m sure she is,’ said Gorn. ‘Look, there’s a wagon. Let’s see if I can get us some space on it, shall I?’  
It was a waggon full of hay, and Paddy and Butter watched silently as Gorn hailed the waggoner. Butter watched her master empty his coin purse into the waggoner’s palm with a an anxious tightening in her stomach.

***

Gorn thought that poor Butter was fraying, slightly, and was happy he’d found a cart to carry them for the rest of the day. He’d used up most of his coin, but he still had those bills of credit from the King, and that was plenty to finish his journey on. 

There was a man already asleep atop of the hay bales, lying with his hat over his face.  
‘Hold tight to your basket,’ Gorn said to little Mistress Paddy, and swung her up onto the back of the cart, then climbed after her and swung her up again on top of the hay bales. She was smiling to be up so high, and he counted that a small victory, but when he jumped back down to help Butter he thought she looked a little odd.  
‘Paddy will take your bundle,’ he said, and she nodded once, and handed up the bundle and the water bottle.

When he turned from Paddy he found Butter beside him on the cart, and he was struck with hesitancy about touching her, because she hadn’t waited for his help.  
But he asked ‘Do you need a leg up?’ And she nodded again.

When they were perched up on the wide bed of hay bales, Butter patted the place next to her and Paddy sat beside her.  
‘You might lie down to sleep,’ Gorn said, sitting down between the man who was already taking his rest and the two ladies.  
‘I am quite awake,’ enunciated Paddy, and Gorn said,  
‘Oh I’m sure. But Mistress Butter rose early today, and she needs to keep her strength up,’  
‘Yes,’ said Butter, blinking a few times and then adding. ‘Thoughtful of you, master.’  
Again, the oddness hadn't worn off, but then - perhaps he hadn’t known her long enough to know what was odd. She at least stretched herself out on the hay with her hat shading her face, though she lay crosswise, so her body was between the little girl and Gorn.

This little girl spent a great deal of time peering into her basket, and Gorn surmised that she was nervous; and so he looked out at the trees, and the sky, to spare her feelings. The dozy afternoon heat dissuaded most travellers, so the road was quieter, and, elevated above the conversation of pedestrians, peace settled over the passengers on the haycart.

‘Master Gorn,’ Paddy’s sharp little voice startled Gorn, after nearly an hour of almost napping under the dusty breeze.  
‘Yes?’ he asked.  
‘Are you a soldier?’  
She was frowning at him, and Gorn could see her thought bubbling out of her, but he just said,  
‘Yes.’  
‘My dad got killed by a soldier,’ she said, baldly.  
‘The war was a very hard thing,’ Gorn said, meeting her pensive eyes.  
‘But my dad was a soldier too,’ she said, ‘and I guess that’s part of the job.’  
‘I’m afraid so,’ Gorn said, and wished he could say anything else. Paddy busied herself with her little basket again, before saying, in the same funny birdlike emotionless tone,  
‘You got any scars, master Gorn?’  
Gorn almost laughed. ‘Oh yes.’ She looked up sharply at that, interest sparkling in her eyes.  
‘Where?’  
‘I got this one,’ he said, pointing to the little pink dent on his temple, ‘cause my sister dared me to jump off the loft onto a pony’s back.’  
‘You did it?’  
‘Of course I did it,’ he said, ‘She’s my older sister, see, and little boys can’t resist a dare. We’re stupid like that,’ and Paddy gave him a pained look, one that said ‘don't I know it’ clear as words.  
‘So you fell off the loft?’  
‘Nah, I made it onto the pony. But she bolted and I couldn’t keep hold.’  
‘Hmm,’ she said, and there was all this rumination in her freckled, almost-prenticed young face. ‘What about battle-scars?’ she said at last. So he showed her his side.

The few grown people who had seen it had always gone quiet, but this time Paddy seemed to trust him all at once, all together, and after looking gravely at him she lapsed into sunny conversation.  
They covered the wagon, the town, her journey, her basket (‘this,’ she had said ‘is my pincushion, and this is ma’s’) before she mentioned her aunt,  
‘I can make pie already,’ she said, ‘and bread, but I've never had cake except once. You ever had cake?’  
‘Couple times,’ said Gorn.  
‘If you come round the bakery maybe my aunt’d give you some. And your wife.’  
‘Now that's kind of you. When I pass through Agfeld I'll try and stop by.’  
‘You're going straight on? Where you headed?’  
‘Oh, borderlands. Visiting my sister.’  
Paddy’s eyes opened wide. ‘She lives in the borderlands?’  
Gorn leaned forward, ‘Aye - in a magic house.’  
Paddy’s eyebrows arched in elegant incredulity over her chubby face.  
‘A magic house?’ Gorn was reminded of Butter’s face when he’d reassured her and she hadn't believed him.  
‘I've seen it myself. She found a glen in the woods with four trees standing in a perfect square. How did that happen, I ask you?’  
‘Someone ‘ud planted them,’ said Paddy reasonably. Nothing would get past this one, he thought with appreciation.  
‘Maybe so,’ he said ‘but it was deep in the woods where no one remembered being before. So my sister decides she’ll build the magic into her house, so she puts up walls between the trees, and a roof, but the trees keep on growing, so now the house is alive.’  
‘What does she do about the leaves?’ Doubting Paddy was skeptical still.  
‘You have me there,’ he chuckled, ‘they pile up something dreadful. She has to get up onto the roof with a broom.’  
‘A broom!’ Paddy squinted into the sky, as if picturing this. Then she said ‘what’s she do all alone in the woods like that?’  
‘Well,’ said Gorn, ‘she went there to get away from everything, but people like her so much they won't leave her alone. A few more people moved out with her, and my sister is magic with a needle, so ever so often she sends off a pack of embroidery to be sold, or takes on an apprentice.’  
‘Why’d she want to get away?’ She asked. This is why I like children, thought Gorn: you know exactly where you are with them. They aren't afraid to ask questions.  
‘She worked in the palace, before, but the old king didn't like her and he threw her out. So she left to Ashgurd.’  
‘The old king was a cursed seed,’ pronounced Paddy with satisfaction. Gorn blinked at her and said nothing.

At this moment the driver yelled ‘Coming up to Agfeld,’ and Gorn noticed the renewed traffic. Butter sat up, taking her hat off her face and stretching her arms as they rolled into town.  
‘Are you needing help to find your aunt?’ She asked Paddy.  
‘I'm supposed to look real hard from the wagon,’ said Paddy, peering into the crowd around them. ‘There!’ She pointed, and Gorn saw a tall woman in severe gray clothes, but Paddy waved and she smiled.  
‘I'll hand your basket down,’ said Butter, and little Paddy nodded at the both of them.  
‘Thank you for your company,’ she said, back to her little stuff nod, and slid down the back of the hay bales, and received her basket, and was gone. Gorn saw her Aunt stoop down to kiss her, and watched their retreating backs until there was nothing left to see. 

‘So, master,’ said Butter, and her brisk tone startled him. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and dipped her water bottle in his direction. ‘How’m I going to pay you back for all this?’  
‘For what, exactly?’  
She shrugged, ‘The food, the water. The wagon. The delay to your journey. You being so - nice. I'd love to make it up to you.’  
‘You sure woke up spry.’  
She shimmied to kneel next to him, eyes misty (with desire, Gorn thought it was supposed to convey) and put her hand on his knee. ‘Want to see how spry I can be?’  
Gorn would have laughed if his heart hadn't pained him.  
‘There is one thing,’ he said, and she slid her hand onto his thigh. Ignoring this, Gorn said, ‘you could recite everything you know of the “Caya Cata”.’  
Butter blinked and her hand slipped off his leg.  
‘What makes you think I know any?’ And her face lost its hazy look.  
Gorn said ‘People say “hard times for hard hearts” but you didn't say that. Earlier. You quoted.’  
She leaned back and lounged on the hay.  
‘So one of my clients was a wordy snob.’  
She ran distracting hands over her body and smiled up at him. Gorn’s throat was dry, but he made himself say,  
‘So you don't remember any?’  
He must have hit the right note between incredulous and forlorn, because she sighed and said ‘I remember some.’  
Gorn turned himself onto his belly, propping up his head, and waited. She rubbed a fold of her dress over her knuckles once or twice, and looked at him again - so he closed his eyes, lest she was a self conscious performer, and she began.

‘Sky-warrior slept under sun  
In the great green-deep glen.  
His lady’s sword lay lightless  
As the frosty, freckled fen  
Whose waters began to wend  
Through her heavy plaits of hair  
Her sleep was not the sleep of the sky warrior  
Her breath buckled in the bright air...’

‘Some’ turned out to be the whole of the first singing, which Gorn listened to, after a while, with his eyes fast shut, remembering how the firelight had looked over the leather armour or bit of tack he has always brought with him to mend in the hall at Turmagil, of an evening, when the storyteller distracted everyone from the troubles of war. Gorn liked those stories, even liked the parts where the hero died, but they never stuck in his head. How could Butter keep all these words inside her, in the right order? She had a real knack for it, and the further on they got the more animated she became, giving voices to the Lady and the Sky-Warrior and the Child and the Tree, and the Eatfire. 

‘But the tree began to burn  
With the sword standing inside  
And the Child chose to churn  
The wet white eyes, and wide.  
So Lady’s laughing gaze was lamed  
And turned to salt.’

She halted; this was where Durgam the storyteller had always stopped for a bit of mead, but Butter showed no signs of speaking again.  
‘You're going to leave it there!’ Gorn sat up, grinning, ‘cruelty!’  
‘I thought you were asleep,’ she said, and looked over him in the way he was used to men in the sparring ring looking him over.  
‘Asleep? I've only fallen asleep during a tale twice. Couldn't sleep, the way you made it grip. Where'd you learn it?’  
She shrugged ‘I've an ear for a rhyme. You pick things up,’  
‘Mh,’ said Gorn, who reflected that she hadn't seemed to know many of his walking songs, but who considered nothing more dangerous to comradeship than too many questions


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO
> 
> There are a couple of warnings for this chapter, but since this is my first ever author's note I thought I'd say hi!
> 
> This is my first foray into posting on AO3 - it seems like such a community space, so I'd love to chat to you guys. Chuck me a comment if you really want to make my day: about this fic, about you, fic rec etc I'd love it all. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter include a brief instance of sexual assault and very brief panic/dissociation, both at the very end of the chapter.

He hadn’t tried to touch the little girl. Though Butter had turned traitor to herself and fallen asleep more than once, she thought she would have woken if he had reached over her body to Paddy. Not many men had an eye for a pretty little girl, but it was still an obscure relief to know Gorn wasn’t one of them.

This did nothing for the bigger cloud of anxiety which was beginning to bloom inside of her. Gorn had owned her for near enough a whole day and the only thing he’d asked of her was a song. And giving him that, following pretty much the only order she’d received in this whole nonsensical twenty-four hours, had already exposed too much of her. She must be careful, she must find what he really wanted. Either he held a darkness in him which would strike out, given the right provocation, or he was truly as gentle as he seemed. Butter let herself imagine, in a small warm moment of silence after the song, living with him, a big easy-to-manage soldier man with simple desires. How she ached for a bit of rest.

But simple though his desires might be, or deceptively deviant, she had no idea what they were, and in either case it was best to know sooner rather than later. Only then could she prove that she was worth keeping. Until then, until she was sure of her place with him, his gentleness was only a lure, either of a life better than she had hoped for or dangerous as she did not know - either a promise, or a prison.

So she kept her wits sharp as they entered the inn. This was slightly seedier than the one of the last night; the serving maids had their shifts untied at the neck, showing how their belly laughs bounced their bosoms, and two men were smoking inside, filling a corner with a smell which set Butter straight at ease. Men laughed, dice clacked and by the smell of it someone was mulling cheap wine. The place was called ‘The Unicorn’s Horn’. She liked it already. 

Master Gorn marched straight up to the bar and asked for the innkeeper. Butter, figuring that she’d never met a man who didn't want other men to admire his things, stretched out against the bar in the way tipsy fellows liked.   
‘Your host, sir,’ said a stout man with an apron and a greasy beard. Butter saw his eyes flicker over her before they came to rest on Master Gorn.  
‘A good evening to you,’ Gorn said, over the din, and Butter realised it was the first time she had heard him raise his voice. ‘Have you a room for the night?’   
‘Cash in hand, no pimping,’ said the innkeeper, and Gorn blinked over at Butter in shock. Well, what did he expect, walking in with a whore on his arm?  
‘Here you are - ‘ he pulled out his sheaf of papers from his coat, and offered one up to the innkeeper.   
‘Valleran,’ said the man, and squinted at Butter. ‘Sorry,’ he said, holding out the bill of credit, ‘but I want cash.’  
‘This will get you a tax rebate,’ said Gorn without changing expression, ‘when the tax collector comes, show it to him an d- ‘  
‘Yeah, I know how it works,’ said the innkeeper, sneering. He looked at Butter again. ‘Hello there, darling. You his wife?’ Butter felt a quick stab of anxiety and rushed to correct him before Gorn could be embarrased. ‘Bedslave,’ she clarified, and smiled at the innkeeper the way she knew he wanted to be smiled at.  
‘Lovely,’ he said, and flicked his attention back to Master Gorn without looking away. ‘I don’t want your paper, Valleran. Pay me in coin, or - ‘ he was staring at Butter now ‘ - kind.’ Butter met his gaze, and cold fell over her stomach. What can you do to make coin, is what Master Gorn asked had her. The only thing he asked her.   
Master Gorn stood up a little straighter and tucked his papers away. ‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘Butter and I’ll just have to figure something out.’ 

Butter didn’t move. Nothing in her moved. This is a relief, she told herself firmly. A relief. Finally something makes sense. 

‘Master Gorn,’ she forced herself to say, then smiled and ran her hand up his chest, slipping into an old groove, ‘maybe you could get yourself an ale and sit down and let me try my luck persuading our host to get us a room.’  
Gorn stared at her and Butter felt her heart beating in her ears. She’d had a pimp once who let customers put their hands all over her, but slapped her if she made a sound before the money swapped hands. She’d been in one place where the johns were just sent in to her room, and she had no idea what they paid or what for. She could have badly overstepped - but then, Gorn didn’t seem like he really knew how it all worked. He probably wanted to stay as far away from the dirty business as possible, and if it meant Butter could arrange her own prices and conditions, then she’d pretend all he wanted. She wouldn’t even cheat him of his coin.

She slid her hand down and grasped his. ‘Give me a chance,’ she said. She could actually hear her heartbeat.

Gorn’s arm, where they touched, didn’t tense for a blow. He held her hand and looked down at her and said ‘Alright, then.’

Butter breathed again. Master Gorn nodded to a table of dicers and said ‘I’ll go watch the game. Don’t worry if he won’t budge.’

Butter turned back to the innkeeper, who was leaning over the bar, and already smirking. 

***  
Maybe she had a taste for bargaining? Maybe she’d run a vegetable stall, or haggle for the price of thread with Tess. Whatever it was, Gorn hadn’t the heart to say that he was sure policy was policy and prejudice was prejudice, and he didn’t think that innkeeper would change in a hurry. He hadn’t liked the look of the man. 

Gorn had never been one for dice, but after a few hands a neighbouring table set up a checkers board, and one of the players was really something. Gorn had watched several games and was congratulating himself on using up the last of his coin beforehand, so that now he was safe from placing a bet with the crowds who clearly were mad in backing Side-Eye Sam against the sly Jonno, when he realised that Butter wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Had someone hurt her? He had been absorbed, but Gorn wouldn’t believe that that he could miss it if someone was threatening his woman. But she wasn’t his, he reminded himself. Perhaps she had slipped out the door? Gorn didn’t know why that thought pained him, but when he decided there was nothing to be done and returned to the checkers table, the triumph of Jonno did not so much as flicker in his eyes. 

‘Master Gorn?’  
He couldn’t stop himself from smiling as he turned to that now-familiar voice. There she was - but she wouldn’t meet his eyes.  
‘I’ve paid for the room, sir,’ she said. Had she ever called him ‘sir’ before? Her hair was tumbling down her back - he could have sworn she’d tied it up only a little while ago. She made herself smile at him, and Gorn noticed that her lips where a swollen red.  
‘Paid?’ he asked, but he knew, all in a moment, what she had done. Still he hoped, and said desperately: ‘Butter - you didn’t have any money - did you?’  
‘Master,’ she came forward and took his arm, and the cold of her fingers seemed to bite through his shirt. ‘You asked me what I do to make coin. Well, I’ve made you some coin. You can save your bills of credit.’  
Horror leached all the strength from Gorn. For a moment he did not move, and finally, as Butter tugged against an arm that resisted her, did she look up at his face. 

She dropped his arm as if it burned and backed into the nearest table, ignoring the beer she knocked over and the grunts of discomfited men.   
‘What are you about, wench?’ hissed a red-faced farmer, and pawed at her hip, but she only stared at him, unable to speak.   
‘Unfortunate,’ said Gorn, moving in next to Butter. He slipped his last penny onto the table and picked up the beer mug. ‘Have one on me.’ Then, with the lightest of touches on her back, he steered Butter out of the pub and into the road.   
‘The - the innkeeper said the room was ready - ‘ she said, and Gorn stopped right there in the traffic and faced her.  
‘We’re not going use his room,’ he said.   
She licked her lips, her hands fisted in her skirt. ‘I - I shouldn’t have - paid him - without asking you first. You only told me to negotiate. I’m very sorry.’ 

Honestly, where had this woman come from? Gorn felt like he was a soldier trying to follow a flag-signal system from another army - every time he thought he knew what was happening, he ran into something sharp.  
‘You don’t understand me at all. This isn’t about - obedience - ‘ He subsided, helpless before the mass of ill-defined concepts and feelings confronting him. ‘There’s a gypsy encampment by the mouth of the village,’ he said at last. ‘I saw it on our way in. We can go sleep there.’  
White though her skin was, it grew paler in the luminous evening light. ‘If this isn’t about obedience, master, why are you punishing me?’   
‘What?’ Out of habit when perplexed, Gorn found himself clutching his sword handle. Butter saw it, he realised, but her eyes only glittered the more in her sharp face. ‘What are you talking about?'  
‘There’s a room, in there, - ‘ she pointed to the inn; on the edge of his vision, Gorn saw passersby begin to look at them. ‘It’s warm, and clean, and there’s even a proper large bed. I made sure. And I paid. So why are you making me sleep outside?’  
Gorn felt irritation begin to flicker in spite of himself.  
‘I’m not forcing you to do anything. Go sleep in that room if you like. But I won’t do it.’ He turned away, determined not to look back to see if she followed or not.  
‘What is _wrong_ with you?’ She jammed enough force into this that two women stopped in their tracks to survey Gorn. He swung back to face her, stunned. Butter had great fistfuls of her skirt bunched at her sides, and her glare could skew boars. ‘I’ve been _useless_ ever since you bought me, and you haven’t done anything, and now I’ve finally done something for you, and this is when you decide to get angry?’   
She advanced towards him and he found himself backing up. ‘What does it take to please you, master? How am I supposed to know what you want from me?’ She swung her arm in a wide arc, hair quivering and eyes like mad arrows - ‘I don’t know what the hell is going on!’

Everything steely inside of Gorn was straining to throw that back at Butter, because he was damned if he knew what was going on, either. But he saw tears in her eyes.   
‘Butter - ‘ he said, reaching for her shoulder, She slapped his hand away.   
‘No!’ she hissed, ‘why won’t you use the room?’

Gorn stopped and looked at her. Small woman with a darkness round her neck, hunched round herself, he saw her for the first time as a slave on a street full of free people - unarmed in a world of weapons - a friendless woman with a silent man. High on her cheekbone was a red mark not from blushing.  
He forced himself to say anything. ‘You’re hurt - he hurt you.’  
‘It’s nothing. It won’t mark.’  
‘I won't profit by your hurt.’ But even as the words left his mouth he knew they fell utterly short.   
Butter pushed a tear off her face. ‘When are you gonna start making sense?’  
‘Well, my mother was convinced I never had much of it to start with,’ he tried, even managing a half smile. She didn't shift.  
‘You selling me?’  
‘What? No - ‘  
‘You gonna use me?’  
‘Butter - ‘  
‘Punish me, then?’ 

Gorn held up his hands, palms out, so she could read truth in his stance like she was so fond of doing.  
He said, ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’  
She crossed her arms and looked down, taking several deep breaths before meeting his gaze again.   
‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ she said, and Gorn looked into her steady, earnest dark eyes and knew she was hiding everything behind them. ‘Please, sir, just tell me. You don’t have to pretend. I’ll take the punishment.’  
‘I’m not pretending, Butter,’ he said.

She slapped him across the chest and jerked back, trembling all through her body. The blow stung, but Gorn didn’t move. He took a few deep breaths and waited for the attention of the cart driver (who had seen her strike him) to be diverted. Her eyes danced all over him, checking, always checking, until she realised that he wasn’t going to retaliate.   
Gorn said, ‘Not going to hurt you,’ and waited for her to relax. But Butter’s eyes narrowed to slits and her fists clenched into her sides. ‘Stop playing games with me, you _bastard_ ,’ she hissed, and ran.

***  
Butter paused inside the door of the inn to catch her breath and wipe her eyes. When retribution did come, she was sure it would be brutal. The crowds in the tavern offered her a momentary relief – somehow, she still felt she was less likely to be hurt in front of an audience. Ridiculous, of course; once she had even been dragged, kicking and screaming, out of pub not unlike this one. But when rage took over so did instinct.

Butter knew she would regret letting either of them run wild, but for the moment every scrap of fear and resentment she had surpassed in the last day - week - however long - where thumping through her body. A quick glance over her shoulder showed Master Gorn striding off down the road, away. Savage satisfaction filled her before a swoop of panic displaced it. 

But she refused to think of it, of any of it. She marched up to the bar and let herself be grateful that the leers seemed to slide off her, like they used to do.   
‘I’d like to be shown to my room, please,’ she announced stiffly, but the innkeeper handed off the pint he’d drawn and accepted payment before he even looked at her.  
‘Where’s your master?’ he asked.  
‘He’s joining me later,’ she lied, and followed the man upstairs.

The corridors of this place were smoke blackened - smoke of various kinds, as the lingering smell twining with sour alcohol and sour sweat proved. The innkeeper hadn’t bothered to bring a lantern and so Butter stumbled in the dim after him, fighting off the thoughts of what had happened when she followed him behind the bar. Laughter jumped from the doors they passed until one was opened. The innkeeper held it for her, but when she entered he shut the door and crowded her against it. 

Butter was numb, couldn’t even feel surprise as he squeezed her and stuffed his beery face into her neck.  
‘I think I’m ready for a round two,’ he said, and Butter heard the clink of his belt buckle.  
‘No,’ she said, and his chuckle shook her where their bodies were pressed together. For a moment she couldn’t move, as his hands roamed and pinched. He pulled her hair. They always pulled her hair.  
‘My master doesn’t share,’ she croaked,  
‘Didn’t have much of a problem earlier,’  
‘I paid you,’ she said, echoing her earlier words with Gorn, and all the feeling rushed back into her, hot and choking. She shoved the man away with two jabs of her sharp hands, and he rocked back, stupefied.  
‘You saw my master's sword,’ she hissed, ‘and his bill of credit. He has wads of them. Whataya think he did to get that kind of money from the king, huh? Do you think anyone will care if he rips your lips right off your greasy face?’   
The innkeeper blinked at her, frowning. ‘He’s coming up any moment now,’ Butter said coldly, and walked out into the room to point to the door. ‘If you leave now, I might not tell him you tried to damage his property.’   
For a moment he just stared at her, and Butter forced all the fear she felt away from her face and stared him down. She was good at that, she remembered. She was good at all of this. Especially the lying.

The innkeeper moved to the door. ‘We’ll see what your master has to say about your insolence,’ he hissed, and before she could move he was covering her mouth with his and she couldn’t breathe.

But then he was gone, and Butter collapsed against the door and tried to get her breathing back.

She realised presently that she was crying, and that great gasps of air were wracking her whole body. Butter wondered why she was lying on her side with her back to the door. Her body didn’t feel right, didn’t feel like she could move it, or that she should move it. She watched her hand trembling and couldn’t stop it, even when she pinched it in her other hand. Everything was too loud at the edges. 

She covered her eyes and wept.


	5. Chapter 5

Eventually the shaking stopped and she could take a breath without sobbing. Slowly, Butter sat up and gazed dismally about the room. A fire was burning, and there was even a dim mirror over the mantle, but Butter didn’t look into it as she made her way, stiff and slow, over to the urn.

The water was cooling, but that that was all to the good on her burning face. She scrubbed at it roughly and then buried her face in the towel set beside the stand. When she pulled away, Butter saw two dark smudges on the cloth. It was the last of her eye makeup from two nights ago. The bath Gorn gave her hadn't washed it all away.

What has become of me? She thought. Only a day ago she had been putting this sooty makeup on her eyes. She had not wanted to go out into the streets and fool men into wanting her, but she had been ready to do it. Butter knew what to do with that pain. 

She didn't know what to do with this one.

The towel was folded. There was a bolt on the door, and Butter shot it home. Calm, cold and jagged, settled over her.

There's no way Gorn’s coming back for you, she told herself. You touched another man without his permission. You yelled, and you hit him. You hit him, and he hasn't even raised a hand to you. He didn't even think it was worth punishing you. Probably didn't want to soil his belt. He just left you, like a dog he didn't bother with drowning. Like a meal he didn't want to eat.

Part of her asserted that he wouldn't want to lose money, that he'd come back to sell her on, at least. But she told herself - he's a man with money, no matter how he chooses to dress. He's got a destination, he doesn't want to be held up. You’ve slowed him down already. 

She recalled how he had hated the entire process of buying her, shoving coins into old Bart the Bawd’s hand just to be done. Those times he said you wouldn't be sold, he didn't mean he'd keep you, she whispered to herself. He just wouldn't bother with anything so sordid. He's done with the whole vulgar business of you.

So, then. She was masterless. She didn’t even bother with the word ‘free’. The only time she'd tried that it had ended in painful disaster, and Butter knew enough by now to realise that fooling free folk into thinking she was one of them was a sure way to heartache. Without money for supplies she couldn't forge manumission papers, but even with the papers it would only be a matter of time. She felt weary just remembering the thick set anxiety which had jammed its way into her stomach for all that too sweet year of recklessness.

Butter sat down on the bed, one heavy thought following the next. 

Fact is, Butter, you’re a marked woman. And you’re close to the border, too. Every minute you’re not with a master is a minute that Eyes gets closer to finding you. So pull yourself together and figure out what to do next. 

But the memory of Eyes, though never far from her, was enough to make her concentrate on her breathing.

There was a knock at the door and Butter dived for it, visions of Gorn, full of kindness, fairly blinding her. He'd let her cry, but he’d forgive her, and she’d take whatever punishment he saw fit because in one day Gorn had been kinder to her than Eyes ever had. 

But when she opened that door it was someone she didn't know, a man with a brown mustache and a bland face.  
'Well, hello there, darlin,' he said, and put his hand on her cheek, and slid it down to cup her neck and then her shoulder, all quick enough that she'd not recovered from her shock.  
'Aren't you pretty,' he purred. 'What can I give you for the night?'   
This was her chance. If she could work tonight, then she would have enough coin by morning to buy food and maybe a place in another inn where they wouldn't know her name or her face, and then - maybe she could find another brothel, one with proper terms -  
Even, whispered that secret part of her, she could find scribe work - Dreams filled up her head, swimming between her eyes and the client before her - she saw herself, pretending to be a widow - women smiling at her in the street - books, books that belonged to her that she could read whenever she wanted - Gorn looking proud of her - of a sudden, Gorn’s face when he was amused looked back at her, surprised and delighted, and then the breath of the man at her door hit her nose. His mustache was dampened with beer and his eyes looked from her mouth to her breasts to her neck in an alarmingly familiar routine. All of the sudden Butter felt sickness rise up in her, sickness and fear.  
'Not for sale,' she said, and slammed and bolted the door just to be sure.

I’m gonna regret that, she thought.

 

Tisp - the sound of a paper sliding under the door. Butter picked up the small scrap and unfolded it. She made no sound, did not even blink, but tears - silent and sudden - began to fall over her cheeks. She crushed the scrap in her fist, strode to the window and pulled at it. It didn't open. Butter’s hands beat and spasmed over the frame until she found the catch, throwing wide the windows. Smoke and cold and shouting rushed up at her from the ground below. She knelt on the windowsill. And then she jumped.

 

***  
The camp was not of gypsies, that had been an ignorant mistake for him to make. It was actually made up of slaves on their way to Valleran freedom, too poor to pay for an inn.   
There were people of every description, from elderly patriarchs hunched over their stew to too-young mothers singing as they kept their toddlers from stumbling into the fires.

Camaraderie marked some of the groups, songs and laughter flying from fire to fire, but Gorn could not bring himself to attempt conversation. He was too angry, at Butter and himself, an anger made worse by the hunger and tiredness of the day. He found a family and, in as little words as possible, obtained permission to use their fire to cook his porridge. They were wary of him - few of the freed slaves carried weapons like his - but when he offered to carry water and firewood for them they acquiesced, and, mercifully, did not try to speak to him while he ate. 

The quietness, composed of the crackle of fires and the laughter and talk of those around them, partnered with the familiarity of his soldier’s fare, helped ease the ache of strangeness over him. By the time he was rinsing out his small cookpot in the bucket of water he had drawn for the family, Gorn reflected ruefully on the benefits of a full stomach to aid good judgement. I let myself be angered, he thought, shaking off droplets of water, when I had no business to. He chastised himself with the very same phrase he’d used to knock the heads of Turmagil’s young farmers-turned-guards: ‘empty stomachs don't mean empty heads’. 

Well, he’d been empty-headed enough; he’d left that poor girl alone. She still had bandages under her clothes to stabilize that bruised rib! And no money to speak of. Gorn supposed that she seemed able to make money as she pleased, and it had been her who left him. In truth, that's what had angered him most - she hadn't let him explain or seek explanation, she had just lashed out and run.

I could just leave her and get on to Tess, he thought. Tess’s wondering where I am, about now. I don't owe Butter anything, even if she did touch that innkeeper to - please me. 

The taste of Butter’s logic was so foreign on his tongue.

Thing is, he thought as he unrolled his big old sleeping bag, I think she's more confused than I am. For certain, she's more afraid. 

And the whole reason that Gorn was who he was - sword on his belt, scars on his side, frightened bedslave on his mind, and all the rest of it - was that, no matter how scared or bewildered he was, if he met someone more lost than himself, he never walked away. 

***  
He woke before dawn, grey light filtering over the pine trees surrounding the encampment. His internal waking call had been slipping of late, a combination of age and the nightmares that still sometimes slivered away at his sleep, but he thought he’d have to be pretty old for a bunk in the open to catch him sleeping through sunup. 

Gorn stretched and knew immediately that something was off. Slowly, lest it be an animal’s heat he felt at the foot of his blankets, he sat up. There was a bundle of dark hair and green cloak curled around his feet. Butter had come back.

A great wave of compassion broke over Gorn. He could see the damp creasing the folds of her cloak; she had been here before the first dew, then. Damn.   
‘Butter,’ he said, then again ‘Butter - wake up, now,’ and he shifted his feet. 

She blinked slowly, and Gorn, remembering her panic on awakening yesterday, held very still. But Butter didn’t seem to be shocked. She blinked up at him a few more times, sat up and bowed her head. 

In the distance behind her, Gorn could see the flicker of two cookfires being kindled. Other than that, the tents and wagons were silent and still while the world slept. Butter still did not move. Gorn let himself breathe in and out three times, just while he gathered himself. He never rushed into battle without at least two tactics jangling, ready for use, in his palm. Maybe more. But then, planning too far ahead had never been the way he fought, or the way he lived.  
‘Butter,’ he said. ‘I - well, I’m glad to see you.’ If anything, she tensed the more, but she did not look up. ‘I want to say I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I hope you can forgive me.’   
She gave the tiniest of nods. ‘Do it,’ she said.   
Two words in and he was already lost. Well, it’s not like I was expecting to understand. She’s a whirlwind mystery. And her hand is trembling, on her knee there.   
‘What is it you want me to do?’  
She shuddered and squeezed her knees. ‘Beat me?’   
This woman, thought Gorn. Oh, this woman.   
‘Why’d I do a thing like that?’ he asked. Better lead people out of their panic gently, step by step.  
‘Cause I hit you.’ she said, breaking into a whisper on the final word and continuing hoarsely. ‘I sucked a man off without your permission. I shouted. I - I ran.’ She swallowed and he could see her eyelids flickering. It was hard to think of her - It was hard - Gorn was struggling to conceive of a mind, a history, which could contain the pain Butter was sitting in right now. All in a moment he understood Tess’s decision to leave everything and abandon the world. Some things hurt too much to stand. If he could keep Butter safe from the world, magic tree house or no - well, he’d do his damndest.   
‘I’m so sorry, master Gorn,’ she said.   
Gorn said, ‘I’m a soldier, myself. I understand about orders, and insubordination. If one of my soldiers disobeyed one of my orders without good reason, well, he might spend a week cleaning stables. He might be hung, if it was bad enough. I understand about punishment.’ He paused, then tried to make his voice firm but not harsh. ‘I’m not playing games with you, Butter.’ Her breathing was shallow and quick, and he figured he’d maybe gone a bit far. But he wanted to be clear.   
He said, ‘Can I ask you two questions?’  
She nodded, quick and sharp.  
‘Have I given you an order that you disobeyed?’  
‘I - ‘ She frowned and, if possible, hunched down smaller.  
‘It’s not a trick question, Butter. I promise. Have you ever done the opposite of something I asked you?’  
‘No. I guess not.’ she said, then rushed ‘But it was implied - ‘   
Gorn waited, but she wasn’t going to finish that sentence.   
‘Well, alright. Let’s say the order was implied,’ he said, ‘that lets me ask my second question. Did you ever disobey an order without good reason?’  
She hovered a moment, and then said ‘Yes.’   
‘I don’t need you to say something cause you think it’s what I want to hear,’ he said.   
‘Master,’ she said, ‘I - please - ‘ Tears dropped onto her folded hands and Gorn clenched his jaw and made himself finish what he’d started. He had to make sure they didn’t keep misunderstanding each other.  
‘You hit me - but that was because you thought I was going to hurt you. You - you touched someone because you thought that’s what I wanted you to do. You ran away because you were angry with me and you needed to be alone - I think - or because you thought I was going to hurt you.’ He shrugged, ‘The shouting, well, maybe a little harder to explain, but I think you were scared, and that makes sense. I’ve met lots of soldiers who shout when they get scared.’ Butter chanced a glance up at him but she was staring at her knees before he was able to muster a smile.   
‘The point I'm trying to make, Butter, is you haven’t done anything without good reason, this whole time. So even if I had given you orders, I would understand why you reacted the way you did.’

He let that sink in, then said, ‘D’you think you're up for looking at me?’  
She did look at him, and he waggled his shoulders. ‘I’m up to my chest in sleeping bag. Tess sewed it for me, actually, and it’s pretty sturdy.’ Her eyebrows were high on her forehead now, and her shoulders were squaring up. ‘Point is - if I was set on hurting you, you’d have warning. I’d have to struggle my way out of this. Right?’  
‘Yeah,’ she said, cold and curious - a challenge. Gorn’s relief hit him right below his heart and he couldn’t keep himself from smiling.   
‘Maybe I could explain a few things without you being as scared that I’m going to knock you around?’ he suggested. 

Butter shifted from kneeling to sitting cross-legged, and she kept her eyes on him - tracking up and down but always coming back to his face.  
‘Remember when I mentioned that there were those three burghs in Ashfeld that belonged to Vallera?’   
Butter’s face was a wrinkle of confusion before she smoothed it out again. ‘I remember.’  
‘On of them is named Turmagil, and that’s where I was when the war broke out. I’m Valleran, see.’  
She didn’t seem to see anything, didn’t move. Gorn continued, ‘There haven’t been slaves in Vallera for years. Couple of kings at least. So I don’t - I guess I don’t really see people like that. As slaves. I mean, I thought you were just very polite, always calling me ‘master Gorn’, even when I forgot to call you ‘mistress Butter’. I’m not real good at the niceties.’ His chuckle died in the face of her stony frown. He forged on, firm and quiet   
‘I’m talking about obedience because I want you to feel safe by your own way of thinking. But I never expected you to obey me. I still don’t.’  
‘So,’ said Butter after a minute, ‘why’d you buy me?’  
Gorn shrugged ‘You seemed like you were in a tight corner. I could help.’   
‘Oh,’ she said. And then in quite a different tone: ‘Oh. Then - I'm sorry for acting so - oddly - ‘  
‘It wasn’t your fault. I should have explained myself.’ Gorn waited for her to look up and met her eyes. ‘I scared you back there. I’m sorry for it. Will you forgive me?’  
She blinked at him, eyes moving rapidly.  
‘Yes,’ she said, and Gorn finally allowed himself to smile. ‘I'm real glad,’ he said. 

She rose stiffly, and he wondered how much her side was still hurting her.   
‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘for being so kind.’  
Foreboding trickled up Gorn’s spine.  
‘What happened to your hand?’ He asked, maybe a little sharply. He could see the palm was scraped and he thought maybe one of the fingernails was hanging loose.  
She said ‘Oh,’ and held it up to inspect it. ‘When I left the inn, I climbed down from the second storey,’ she shrugged, ‘must've happened then.’   
‘You climbed down? Like, down the outside?’   
She nodded. ‘There was a veranda roof beneath my window. So it was pretty simple.’  
Gorn’s world rearranged itself ‘Was the door not working?’ He inquired weakly.  
‘News had spread that there was a whore in the house,’ she shrugged, ‘guess I didn’t feel like working.’   
‘Ah,’ said Gorn, ‘I see.’ He imagined a queue of lecherous men lining a corridor, and wondered what bitter experience had taught Butter not to attempt to walk through them. ‘Well, I got some of that salve left, for your hand. And come to think of it, you better take off the bandages around your side. Does it hurt much, any more?’  
He might as well have been speaking Kathri, if her face was anything to go by. ‘Master Gorn - Gorn - ‘ she said, ‘I don’t intend on bothering you any more.’  
Ah. Of course, soon as she realised he wasn’t gonna force her to stay, she would go. This was exactly what the plan had been, all along, to get her to a place she wanted to be - so it was silly, downright wrong, Gorn told himself, to feel so disappointed about it.

He opened his mouth to say goodbye and said ‘At least let me bandage your hand?’   
She blinked at him and it wasn’t until she said ‘Alright,’ that he realised he had been holding his breath. 

***  
‘You - ‘ said Butter, and Gorn’s eyes flickered up from his task of bandaging her cracked fingernail. Gotta say it now, Butter - ‘You really don’t want anything - in return for this?’  
‘Nope,’ said Gorn, and tied it off.   
I mean, you’ve already worked out that he’s mad, Butter thought to herself. Figures.   
‘Breakfast?’ asked Gorn, standing up. ‘I have some meal for a porridge. Not much.’   
‘Why do you want to feed me breakfast?’ She felt a frisson of fear at being so direct, but she reminded herself that she could leave. At any point, she could just walk away.   
‘Did you have other plans?’ asked Gorn, mildly, not even raising an eyebrow at her tone. Butter felt ashamed, and avoided his gaze.  
‘No,’ she said. 

She followed his directions to the stream and filled up the bucket as heavy as she could carry while he started a fire. The water was bitingly cold on her fingers as she dipped the bucket down, and she remembered only just in time not to get her bandages wet. When she had filled the bucket, she stood for a moment, listening to the stream, and smelling the pine trees. No one else was at the waterside. Her eye was caught by a flitting on the other bank; a little brown bird hopped and plashed in the shallows there, dipping its beak once in a while to drink. Slowly, slowly, her heartbeat came back to a resting pace.

I’m not going to think too much about anything, she decided. I’ll just be around Gorn. He doesn’t follow any rules or make any sense, so I can let sense be for a while. Never mind that I don’t have a master or manumission papers. Never mind that I have to get out of this town as fast as possible. I’ll just play like it’s the night time last week, and only think about the next thing.

The next thing was to take the bucket back up to the campsite, but Butter let herself watch the little brown bird until it flew away.


	6. Chapter 6

Her resolve was shaken pretty much as soon as she had made it, though. Gorn poured some kind of grain from a little pouch into a little cookpot and set it to boil over the fire, then sat down next her on the sleeping roll, and asked  
‘So, do you have any plans?’

Butter kept her gaze up, to the camp beyond their cookfire. It was awake, now, and she saw that most people were dressed in the drab garbs associated with field labourers. Some of them, especially the children - who, in their running and tumbling and shrieks (of joy or pain, Butter wasn’t sure) presented a sharp contrast to their staid and slow-moving elders - had sparks of colour in their clothes, often a kerchief or a cheap ribbon. They were freed slaves, Butter realised, on their way to Vallera. She thought she could even tell how long they’d been away from their masters; some groups laughed and moved easily, and some were silent, and shifty, and they didn’t let their children shout. Still, they had their manumission papers sewn into their shirts. That was more than she could boast.  
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘But I’m sure I’ll keep moving.’  
‘Vellara-way?’ he asked. Was he worried she’d try to follow him?

In any case, it was safer to get away from the border. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

Gorn got up to stir the porridge, and Butter wondered if she should offer to help. But then, if he didn’t want repayment, she didn’t owe him anything. She wondered if, actually, it was safest to get away from him as soon as possible, before he changed his mind and wanted something for all of the things he’d done for her. So many things. 

But she looked at him, his big sword just lying on the ground as he stirred his porridge - he must have packed his meal and his cookpot and his wooden spoon into his pack before setting off, and the thought made her smile. As she watched he sprinkled salt into the mess and her smile broadened as she imagined him tucking his salt into a pocket, maybe with with a sword-sharp stone. Big old soldier man, cooking me breakfast. Big old soldier man, I don’t want to leave him. 

That’s why you stuck around this morning, isn’t it, Butter? Cause you know this camp isn’t a good cover, really. The only thing to do is to get as far away as possible. But you like the way he talks to you and you believe everything he says. You pretend you don’t but you do. God help you, stupid girl. 

Gorn brought her a bowl and a spoon and she couldn’t bring herself to thank him all heavy with self-knowledge as she was. But after a few bites (true soldier fare, she thought, it tasted as close to nothing as anything she’d ever had) she saw that Gorn was eating out of the cookpot, which was on the ground so as not to burn his lap, and was using the big cooking spoon, because he only had one bowl and spoon and he'd given it to her.  
‘Master Gorn,’ she said, and he said ‘Mh?’ and looked up.

Butter looked into her bowl and made tracks in the porridge with her spoon.  
‘Is there - ‘ the idiocy of her question hit her hard but she forced herself to finish what she’d started. ‘Is there anything you - ’ She couldn’t continue.  
‘Yes?’  
‘Is there anything that could make you change your mind?’  
How was it that she felt more naked now than she had in the last three years?  
‘Change my mind on what?’  
‘Keeping me around,’ she whispered, and she’d taken the plunge so she’d at least face the humiliation head on. She set the bowl on the ground and made herself look at Gorn. He was very attentively looking at her, and that threw her off but made her all the more determined.  
‘I really am very good at the entertaining,’ she said, and his face changed somehow so she rushed on. ‘And I know you didn’t like it when I bargained with the innkeeper but you can think more about that, we can make a proper contract and everything so you won’t feel like you’re taking advantage of me - ‘ she expected him to interrupt her but he just looked at her gravely. ‘And I know that’s pretty much all I’m good for but I pick things up, I swear I do - laundry and cleaning and, - and I know a fair few poems to tell you.’ She couldn’t tell what his calm placidity meant but she didn’t think she’d won him over yet, so she took a deep breath and looked down at her knees. ‘If - if your tastes run to the - to the unusual. Well. I’ve had some experience with that. Too.’

And now it was impossible to move. She’d thought perhaps that he hadn’t touched her because he had some odd appetite he didn’t want to reveal but as soon as the words were out of her mouth she knew deep in her bones that she’d disgusted him once and for all. 

‘Butter - ‘ He sounded a little breathless, which was, thought Butter, lifting her eyes in surprise, a good sign. ‘You’re - more than welcome to come with me. Why - why did you think anything had changed?’

All the sudden Butter wanted to cry. She fought down the impulse. ‘You didn’t want to own me - ‘  
‘I don’t want to own you,’ he said, ‘but I want to help you out. Come with me to my sister’s and we - Me, you and Tess - we’ll find you some kind of job. Or if you don’t like it there, maybe I can help you find something in Vallera. Or if you want to stay in Ashgurd, I’ll get you your papers - ‘  
‘Papers?’ She hadn’t thought he’d - he’d bother with those. She’d thought he’d just leave her, because he didn’t want her, and she was trouble. She knew she was trouble.  
‘Manumission papers. That’s how it works here, right? In Turmagil the steward had to write them, ever so often.’  
‘You could do them yourself,’ said Butter, incredulously, ‘Technically you need a witness along with the master, but lots of people don’t care about that - ‘  
‘Well, then,’ said Gorn smiling and gesturing with his long spoon, ‘we’ll get Tess to witness it. Won’t hurt to do things properly, now will it?’  
Butter smiled at him, too amazed to speak, and picked up her bowl, and ate.

***  
Well, she had a whole other woman inside of her, thought Gorn as he walked down the road with Butter. Yesterday she had watched his every movement, careful to stay just a little bit behind him. He had felt, in each moment, the need to be gentle, not to frighten, not to harm. This Butter stared around at the trees, and the people, and the sky, and walked straighter than he’d seen. When he suggested that the crowds made it easier for them to walk arm in arm, she’d agreed easily and tucked their arms together as if it meant nothing. He supposed it did mean nothing. But by golly, he enjoyed it. He hadn’t realised how much her fear weighed on him until it was lessened.  
‘Are you - can I ask you a question? Or two?’ she said, as if Gorn hadn’t been waiting for just that.  
‘Ask away,’ he said.  
‘Why did you like the Caya Cata so much?’  
‘Don’t you like it?’  
‘I mean - I suppose I do. I just don’t see - I’ve been led to believe that poetry is a woman’s pastime.’

Of all the things she’d said to him, this was one of most shocking. 

‘Just for women! Next you’ll tell me roast beef is just for men.’  
She laughed - she laughed! Gorn felt him puff up like a green recruit just at making her laugh.  
‘But why?’  
Gorn applied his mind to it. ‘During the siege at Turmagil things got - difficult. That's the point of a siege, of course. There were times where we worried that we didn't have enough stones or beams to repair things, or firewood, or even food - even men. But we had the best storyteller. We took to eating all together, safer, more efficient, and afterwards we’d sit and listen to him and - well, it made the little battle we were fighting seem - ‘ he chuckled and glanced down at her with the helpless smile of the shy. Shy! Who’d have thought it? ‘It made it seem like a hero’s battle,’ he said. 

It occurred to Butter to tell him that he looked the part, but he’d laugh, he wouldn't think her sincere. She wasn't sure if she was sincere, but she’d thought it all the same.

He said, ‘And the part where the Lady is blind and calls after the Sky-warrior? Oh, I cry every time!’ He tried a grin, and she met him glance for glance.  
‘You cry?’ She asked, willing to share in his laughter, so he went on:  
‘Buckets. I had to pretend I was leaning down to untie my shoes when they got to that part back at Turnagil because the recruits would never have respected me again if they’d seen me! Crying over a story!’  
‘Were you a captain, then? If you trained the recruits?’  
He should stop being surprised at her sharpness, he thought. ‘No, captain is an Ashgurdian army term. In Vallera a captain is a guard or a seaman.’  
‘What were you?’  
Gorn realized he was talking about himself, which after all didn't happen all that much. He wondered how Butter had managed it. ‘I was supposed to be a lieutenant, but I got promoted to major during the siege. Like I said, we ran out of men.’  
Butter didn't laugh at this, and Gorn wondered if the last few years had made his humour too black for civilians.  
‘You know,’ he continued after a minute, ‘I won't talk about the war if you'd rather not. I've met a few Ashgurdians who don't much care to talk battle stories with a Valleran.’  
‘I - I've never been very patriotic,’ she said slowly, and then, brighter, ‘But I haven't heard many battle stories. Least - not ones as struck me as true. Maybe you could tell me some?’ 

And so Gorn found himself talking about his first posting on the coast, and how a clutch of pirates washed up on a holiday when most of his superior officers had been drunk (wouldn’t happen now, with the new king) and Gorn and his young friend Jamil had to wait with the coast guards as the battered hulk approached shore (We were knocking in our boots, I’ll tell you) But the old captain had come down the gangplank (He did in fact have an eyepatch! I could’ve fainted) and just said ‘Agh, my boy, ye can’t prove anything on me, so let me get drunk with the rest of ‘em’ (I asked him to leave his weapons onboard and he did it, mainly, I think, cause he felt bad that I’d sweated through three layers of uniform) and the town feasted with a motley crew of elderly sea-raiders, who, at about three in the morning, said a very jolly goodbye to the villagers and trundled back to their ship, setting sail (very late) the next day. (I’m pretty sure that Belladina, the butcher’s fifty-year old spinster sister, ran off with them, you know. She was seen with a bundle hanging off one hand and a kerchiefed pirate hanging off the other, hurrying down to harbour, and never since.)

This went pretty well, so he wracked his brains for other incidents to make her laugh. He told Butter about how they figured out at Turmagil that they shouldn’t feed the livestock with too much corn cause it made them gassy and that was downright dangerous (for all involved) so they ended up using corn fodder to make rough bread for humans and feeding the livestock their hardtack. He told her about one of the recruits who couldn’t for the life of him wield a sword but who could hit the eye of a frog on a fencepost with a pebble thrown from the back of a bucking bull. (‘You saw him do that? That exactly?’ she asked him, quietly playful. ‘Well, maybe I was giving you a picture of the thing,’ he said, and he found that when her incredulous expression was lifted by a curve of her mouth, well, it made all the difference.) 

He told her about his ma, who had been a hunter and had once shot an apple right off Tess’ head (‘Not your head?’ asked Butter, and he’d said ‘No - Tess’d been bothering her to do it for weeks. By the end of it she could kind of glide across the floor, cause she’d been balancing an apple on her head at every opportunity. I think my Ma just got fed up.’) 

Butter laughed sometimes, and sometimes she didn’t, but her laughs had a sharp bark of surprise about them, and her silences had a comfortable quality he hadn’t felt before. The way she would glance at him, wide-eyed and quizzical, every once and while - it seemed to invite him to continue, wondering what the next thing would be. 

The next thing, as he soon realised, was to leave the main road. They had left the last Ashgurdian village behind, and now a path, dusty white, cut through the woods. They were moving faster because all the ambling trade wagons and peddars just heading from one village to the next were gone; messengers on horses gleaming with sweat, shipments with guards in iron-bound wagons, and slaves, grey-attired and seeking their freedom, were the only travellers, and they each had their own reason for speed.

He figured that if he wanted to avoid misunderstandings, he’d better make an effort to explain himself every once in awhile.  
‘Now,’ he said, ‘when we reach the stream that cuts the road, we’ll turn off into the woods.’  
‘Mmh,’ said Butter, frowning a little bit. ‘Gorn - is that a stream with a red toll house near it?’  
‘Now I think on it, the toll house is red, you’re right.’ He’d known she had travelled! Her accent was too confusing for a single Ashgurdian town to be the mother of. She must have spent time in Vallera.  
‘We left that toll house a quarter mile back,’ said Butter, half-smiling.  
‘What? We crossed the bridge?’ He couldn’t for the life of him recall it!  
‘Yes, we did - you were telling me about the fish - ‘ She folded her lips together as if fighting back a laugh, and Gorn remembered just that expression on her face when he’d been telling her about the fish that kept his dog hostage for three hours when he was a boy. Come to think of it, at the back of this memory there’d been a sound of water and a queue, too.  
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Gorn, stopping in the road, ‘My old captain Kail would be shocked, Butter, downright shocked,’  
‘But you’d just planted the decoy dog,’ she said lightly ‘It was a pivotal point in the story.’

Gorn folded his arms and glanced at her open, nearly-laughing countenance. He felt the creepings of embarrassment, because Butter might be laughing at him, but he shook it off. Besides, Butter laughing was a pleasant thing, he couldn’t deny it. She could laugh at him, and welcome. 

‘Well, I told you yesterday to stop me if I start boring your ears off. I know I’m not much for speaking. And it seems, not much for directions. But I think we’re not too far off course.’ he scratched behind his ear and assessed the curve of the road behind them. ‘No, we’ll be alright. Cutting through the woods.’

He turned off onto the grass verge and she followed him into the bars of shade cast by the trees. It wasn’t until the rumbling of the road behind them had faded to a quivering silence that she spoke.  
‘Master - ‘ he glanced back at her in time to see the rueful quirk of her mouth. She tried again. ‘Gorn - have you come this way before?’  
‘Can’t say I have,’ he said, ‘I was always coming from the other side. Didn’t visit much during the war cause, well. There was war. And a siege.’  
‘Mmh.’ She was a damn good actor, but she couldn’t hide it when she was considering something. Gorn noticed that her face shut down but her eyes moved rapidly - a small detail, but a far cry from how she looked when she was trying not to think at all.  
‘Will we pass through Kathrisi territory?’ she asked.  
‘Oh,’ said Gorn. He confessed to himself he was taken aback.  
‘I hadn't thought of that. You're right, they do live in the borderlands. I suppose we may.’  
‘It's just - ‘ she said, stopped, and carried on. ‘I can't imagine that, after the war, they'd be - any less territorial.’  
Her words sank into the cool darkness of the woods. What was the meaning behind them? It was roundabout, as everything she said was, and it had the flavour of a warning. Gorn found himself straining at the silence which now, he felt, could mask anything.  
‘I must be level,’ he said ‘I don’t know anything about them, only that they pay tribute to the Valleran throne to live in these woods. Are they a threat?’  
She looked surprised, and took a moment to think before answering. ‘They take their borders very seriously,’ she said, ‘I - I heard that the Ashgurds couldn’t get to Vallera through the woods during the war. But - I heard - in the past they haven’t let Vallerans through, to build roads or anything. So I don’t rightly know. People disappear sometimes.’  
‘You’ve an ear to the ground,’ said Gorn admiringly, for he hadn’t heard anything of the kind, but his compliment had Butter skittering away from him again with her eyes on the pine needles underfoot. ‘I meet a lot of soldiers,’ she said.  
‘Mmh,’ Gorn cast back, with a rueful twist on his mouth, to the memory of his time as a footsoldier. He said ‘I’m sure you did.’ They walked in silence through the spotting sunlight for a moment.  
‘Anyway,’ Butter said as if they hadn’t flagged, ‘I guess we’ll be fine long as we only stumble across a couple of them. You’d probably be able to fend them off.’

Well, thought twenty-three-years-a-soldier Gorn, she’d not playing the whore any more. His laugh had a sting at the end of it.


	7. Chapter 7

It was, Butter let herself admit, nice. Walking the big, shadowy, cool, whispery forest - had she ever been in a forest? She didn’t think so - next to a man with a confident step. Well. It made her feel - not safe (that was too great a stretch.) But nice. Like Eyes couldn't see her, at least for now. Like she could afford to indulge in the madness of the benign soldier.

After a time they came to the stream Gorn ought to have turned off at to begin with, and kept it within earshot on their right hand, though bushes and rocks made it hard to walk along the bank. The funniest thing about that whole mistake was how gentle Gorn’s embarrassment had been. Not defensive or jagged like he minded his pride, but still evident, as though he minded her opinion. He was good to travel with. Even his habitual grip on the hilt of his sword had stopped bothering her.

‘What’s that?’ said Butter, pointing to a flutter of wings. Seems she couldn’t stop her own mouth.  
‘Reckon it’s that’s a finch.’ he said.  
‘Finch,’ she whispered. She would remember. ‘I saw a bird this morning,’ she said and felt immediately like a fool. There were birds everywhere, that’s what being outside was like.  
But Gorn said, ‘Oh? I like to see ‘em sing in the mornings. What did it look like?’  
‘It was smaller than my fist,’ Butter held up her hand to show him, remembering the little thing that had pecked at the river water. ‘And it was just brown. All over brown. What’s a bird like that called?’  
‘Do you remember its tail? Did it point down, or up?’ asked Gorn, and Butter couldn’t believe she was having this conversation.  
‘It pointed up,’ she said faintly, ‘It was a real perky little thing.’  
‘A wren,’ announced Gorn, ‘Most likely.’  
‘Ah.’

Butter didn’t know how it happened, but after they had sat down on the flat, sun-warmed rock by the stream, all her peace left her. It happened that Gorn, when opening his pack to take out dried meat, pulled out also the water bottle he had bought for her, still half-full.  
‘Oh,’ he said, and held it out, ‘go ahead and have this. I got your bundle, too, but maybe it'd be best if I carried it till you want it.’  
‘Thank you,’ said Butter, and couldn’t say much else. The noise of the stream and the birds and the rustling was too loud again. 

He handed her a dried sausage and she bit into it to distract herself from the clenching anxiety, and choked. 

‘You alright there?’  
She swigged the water to clear her mouth out. ‘What is this stuff?’  
He looked down at the meat in his hand - ‘It’s just some cured meat. For traveling.’  
‘Is it from Turmagil?’ she asked, knowing she should stop and just eat it, no matter what memories it brought back.  
‘Yes. We got a big shipment from Vallera after the war, cause the soldiers were homesick for it. Is it too strong for you? I could maybe cook something else up.’  
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I just wasn’t expecting it. Ashgurd doesn’t make a thing like that.’  
‘I’m always startled by new things,’ said Gorn, reassuringly.  
New, thought Butter. He doesn’t know the half. She took another bite - such a silly thing, just a bit of sausage, but it had been a long two days, and before she realised what was happening her cheeks were wet.  
‘Butter?’ said Gorn, but she cut him off  
‘The last time I tasted this, my father gave it to me.’ She used the heel of her hand to blot her tears. ‘It was the last time I ever saw him.’ 

The truth felt dangerous and shivery and somehow not all as important as she expected. Was it possible, she wondered, trying to get her breathing under control, to lie for so long that there stops being a difference between what you believe, and what you don’t? 

‘Aw, Butter,’ said Gorn, and she was half-afraid that he’d try to touch her. But he just lowered his hands onto his lap and looked down at the meat he was eating. He said, ‘Worst lunch ever.’  
Laughter broke out of her teary breathing. ‘Thank you for the food,’ she said, ‘I’ll stop being silly.’ She took another bite to prove this to herself.  
‘Folk like us don’t cry for no reason,’ said Gorn, eyes on the river, ‘So I reckon you can cry whenever you want.’

Truth be told, Butter didn’t hear much after the word _us_. She forced herself to eat the rest, and then fetched up both of their water bottles to full them at the stream, possessed all over by a need to be helpful, to serve. Perhaps if she could be useful to Gorn, she could ignore everything in her head that was saying _I should get away from this man. I’ll drag him into more trouble than he ever dreamed._

***  
Later in the afternoon, Butter had asked him if he wanted to hear more of the Caya Cata. The way she had kept her eyes on the softly sleeping leaves above them was a dead giveaway, though he wasn't sure why she wanted him to think she didn’t care.  
‘That’d be right nice,’ he said lightly, and she took a deep breath and began to play out, turn by turn, that shining thread of story, in a voice hardly less thread-like.

She started right back up where she’d left off with no prompting at all, easier than any musician he’d ever seen and almost as good as Durgan. The voices she used for different characters crept slowly back in until he was listening intently for the true timber of her voice, deeper than the lovely one she made for the Lady and only peeping out between character conversations. The voice of the Tree, when it came, had changed from the one he remembered on the back of the cart - she filled it with the gust of the leaves around them, and Gorn wondered again how much time she had spent outside. His stride settled into the rhythm of the poem like it was a marching song. So intent was he, between navigating their course and listening to her story, that when she pulled up and stopped it came as a shock.

‘I’ve forgotten bits of it,’ she said. ‘I - don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve had to leave some things out - ‘  
‘No, I haven’t noticed - I’ve just been gobsmacked that you’ve gone on for a good hour. You know all that. I saw the Cata Galla writ out once, and it was a proper book, thick as my thumb.’ He held up his hand to illustrate this, ‘and the Caya Cata’s even longer. I didn’t think people could know so much.’  
She avoided looking at him as she restoppered her bottle and slung it over her shoulder.  
‘Well, you told me stories all the morning. You know just as much.’  
Gorn laughed at the suddenness of putting - what, his boyhood hijinks? - next to hours of poetry. ‘That was only things I’d lived. Reckon everyone’s got those stories. You’ve got your own, but also those big old poems living with you, in your head.’  
She was shaking her head even before he finished speaking. ‘No. I learned - I learned ‘em cause I didn’t have anything to think about. I didn’t have any stories of my own. And then, after - well, I’ve got some good stories, Master Gorn - but none of them are what I’d call company conversation.’  
‘Oh, I dunno,’ said Gorn, fighting against the curiosity that blazed higher at every moment. ‘I like your conversation pretty well.’  
She smiled at him, but it was a funny smile - Gorn thought maybe she’d roll her eyes if she dared. One day he’d make her dare. ‘You like the Cata Galla?’ she asked instead and he said  
‘I sure do,’ and then his eyes opened wide - ‘You don’t know that one, too, do you?’  
‘Hearken to the bluebells,’ she said in response, smiling and presenting her words with a flickering hand. ‘Hearken to the rain - Hearken to the bluebells, for they tell of the pain - ‘

And so she continued. An afternoon passing like this, walking through a sunspotted forest, on his way to Tess, war over, honours won, and stories woven over him by one of the bravest women he had ever known - this strange and baffling woman - it wasn’t something he’d ever expected, for sure, but the feeling folding over him was happiness.

When the pines began to thin out and the oaks to replace them, Gorn knew they were due to leave the river - now a cold and cheerful stream - and at the second waterfall he judged their angle and cut off to their left. Now a puzzle presented itself to him. How to ask Butter to stop without either interrupting her or suggesting he hadn’t enjoyed every moment of her narration? Her next deep breath he chimed with -  
‘Thank you! That's the quickest journey I've ever taken. Rest your voice now while I set out course from the river.’  
She shot a sharp glance at him, but subsided gracefully.

Gorn took his angle and soon struck a little trickling path that Tess used, he knew, to get to the waterfall on her picnic days, or when she went a-nutting. They'd come out, he told Butter, from behind Tess’s house, instead of going through the village that had collected round her. Her magic grove was a little set apart, ‘For she likes her solitude. It's just Tess and her dog, when she's in between apprentices,’ though the village, called Needle Hollow, was more a collection of friends and exiles from court. ‘There's a dyer, and two piano teachers who've turned to keeping rabbits,’ he explained. ‘Though I've never been but once, before anyone joined her, only heard by letter. Might be bigger now.’

Anticipation tightened in his stomach. When the oaks gave out into old crab apples Gorn couldn't pull back his grin, and when he caught sight of a slender green sapling he stopped and whistled. ‘I saw these planted,’ he said, smiling at them like they remembered him. ‘She's done real well for herself, in spite of it all. Good old Tess.’ Butter’s face was impassive, but Gorn just nodded up through the orchard to the sight of oaks. ‘There's her house, just there.’

And there it was. As they approached, the wind gusted through the greying afternoon to throw up the arms of the oaks at the four corners of the place, and they bent their branches down and hissed like angry mothers. Black smoke curled through the sailing leaves, over the wood shingles, as if the house breathed quietly. Tess had built an outbuilding on the back, Gorn saw; it jutted towards them beyond the trunks of the corner trees, and its windows were all dark.  
‘Let's straight in,’ he said, and tromped through the back door. Tess never locked anything. 

This outhouse was a storeroom: there was her berrying basket in the corner with her hoe, and sacks of seed for spring time, and as they moved through towards the light further in the house Gorn dodged a row of hanging hams.  
‘These must drive her hound Dunnet to madness,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘In fact, I wonder where that dog is. He should be barking up a storm.’ That was odd. Dunnet was always with Tess, and Tess never left without her basket on her arm, so she must be in.  
Butter said nothing, but Gorn did not wait to decipher her silence - he went to the door of the house proper and called ‘Tess! Tess, I'm back home!’ 

There was only silence.

Gorn stepped through into the kitchen, where a fire was burning down. A kettle hung from an iron hook above the flames. Gorn took a cloth from the mantle and picked up the kettle. It was empty. ‘Tess?’ He called again, and she ought to hear him. There were only three rooms save this one in the place. The front room where she did her sewing, her bedroom and a little cubby for the apprentice. But she didn't have an apprentice at the moment, Gorn reminded himself. She was alone.  
‘She can't have gone far,’ he said. ‘You just sit down here and get warm, and I'll go out and have a look round.’ Butter stepped cautiously into the fire-flicked floorboards, and Gorn passed back out through the outhouse. 

Night was pooling fast into the clearing, thickening the evening air. Gorn scanned the treeline, hoping for the sight of Tess trundling through the orchard. Peering into the forest he was struck again by her isolation in these woods. Friends had followed her, but pain had pushed her far away from any safety but that of solitude. 

But isolation had its own dangers - And that’s enough fear mongering, Gorn. You’ll feel a real fool when she comes up that road, singing. 

He rounded the house. A path sighed off into the forest, beyond the meadow. The trees bent down around it, so that a darkness deeper than the evening gaped there. Gorn’s heart clenched. There was another darkness on the grass.

It was her hound. It was Dunnet. Dunnet’s tongue lolled out one side of his mouth and his eye had been stabbed. It bled in a trickle onto the grass. His other eye was still shiny, cocked askew and unseeing up at the sky. Gorn felt an obscure urge to shut it, like he would the eyes of a human. When he touched the dog, he felt the last traces of warmth under his palm.

Gorn rose and began to run back to the house. Butter burst out of the front door, her face stern and terrified, and spread her arms wide across the entrance.  
‘Don't you come in here, Gorn! Don't come in!’

She was like those trees with outstretched branches that had blocked his sister’s way out of this clearing. Numb panic thumped through Gorn and he made for the door. Butter pushed against his chest ‘No! Don't you do it, master Gorn, please don't! Stop! Stop! _No_!’ She hit him on the chest again with the strength of desperation but Gorn took her by the shoulders and moved her aside, and he stepped through into the sitting room and saw Tess on her rocking chair, holding a bit of embroidery stained red from the slit in her throat.


	8. Chapter 8

Gorn did not speak a word. It would strike Butter, later, looking over the day with the elliptical compulsion of trauma: she would remember his silence. He didn’t cry out. He sat down and stared at Lady Theresa - Tess - for a good two minutes, and Butter had stood just outside, looking in and trying to stop the hot tears she had no right to cry.

Then Gorn rose and startled Butter. He moved to stand before the body in the chair, and he picked up a hand - not the one that had dropped the embroidery - and kissed it once, then a second time.  
‘Hey Tess,’ he said. ‘I’m back.’ 

Gooseflesh rose on Butter’s arms. 

He continued, almost whispering, gentle and low. ‘Tessie.’ He clutched her hand in both his own. ‘Tessie. I’m so proud of you, Tess. Couldn’t be a prouder little brother.’ His voice cut out for a moment. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that this is how it - I’m sorry. I should’ve been here. I should have stopped it. Forgive me?’ He looked at her, poor gaping mouth and cap tumbling off, as if he waited for a response. Butter didn’t dare move.

‘This is a crime,’ he said heavily, and set her hand down. ‘We will find out who has done this.’

Butter nodded. 

‘It is important,’ Gorn said, ‘to record as much evidence as possible.’ He moved slowly, as though through deep water, to a writing desk in the corner. Butter drifted towards him as if in a current. 

Careful, Butter. He moved you like a feather. He's angry and in pain, don't touch him, don't draw his attention, be still and small and ready. 

He uncapped an ink pot and took a bony pen from where it lay on the blotter. Lady Theresa would not have let a desk be left like that, back before. Master Gorn dipped the pen into the ink and immediately it sprayed all over the sheet, trembling in his hand. That big sword wielding hand trembled. Before she could question herself Butter had closed her own hand over it.  
‘I'll write, master,’ she said. She eased the pen from his fingers. ‘Dictate to me.’   
She was so sure in the swooping of her stomach that he would jerk away. But he withdrew gently and turned back to his sister in the chair with the blood down her front.   
Butter tapped off the pen and drew a fresh sheet towards her. She wrote the words ‘An Account of the Finding of Lady Theresa Laela’s Body’ across the top of the page. 

Gorn picked up his sister’s hand again and held it in both his own.  
‘The joints are easy,’ he said, and softly put the hand back into the chair. ‘She died in the last hour, I think.’  
‘That means - ‘ exclaimed Butter, bit off her words but then, meeting his eyes, carried on. ‘The murderer is still close.’   
‘I know,’ said Gorn.   
Of course he knew. He'd probably thought of everything Butter had considered. But she had to ask - ‘Can’t we go after him? Get him?’  
Whoever it was, she wanted them dead.   
‘Forest is too big. Could be anywhere.’  
His face was set harsh and Butter fell silent, afraid. But he turned back to his sister and his eyes went all grey and soft and she couldn’t stand it.  
‘I - ‘ she said, and my god, why can’t I stop talking. ‘The - the Kathrisi. They know the forest. They’re supposed to keep the justice here. I reckon - I reckon if we told them they could find the intruder pretty quick.’  
Gorn’s eyes when she looked up were sharp and searching. ‘There’s a deputy’s house no more than a day away,’ he said. ‘I’ll run like hell to get there.’   
Butter nodded. She redipped the pen.

It was dark when they finished, a list of every detail of the body and the room, and Butter’s clean clear scribe’s script erased every broken sentence, and every moment Gorn had stopped to hold back tears, into a cold catalogue. Gorn had lit up his sister’s sewing candle for Butter to write by. She had realised her mistake, by now, and burned to scratch out the name she should not have known. Lady Laela, Tess, Miss Theresa. I shouldn’t know any of it.

Imagine, she thought, if I had come here and Lady Theresa’d recognized me. Her stomach pinched up with fear at the bare thought of that, and she hated herself for it. How dare you, she thought fiercely to herself. How dare you profit by this poor woman’s death. How dare you feel relieved when Gorn is grieving. Still, she folded up the paper twice over before she handed it to him.

‘We’ve got to let Per Halla know.’ Gorn said heavily. ‘Her friend. The villagers. It’s a half-hour walk.’ He stopped in front of his sister, lifted up a blanket and finally, finally, covered her over.  
‘I don’t like to leave her here,’ he said.  
Butter said: ‘I’ll stay with her,’  
He looked at her properly, then. ‘You’ll stay?’ Butter felt a rush of embarrassment for assuming that Gorn would find the idea of a whore standing vigil over his beloved sister’s body at all comforting. ‘With the – the body? You won’t mind it?’  
She shook her head. ‘Don’t worry about me. I won’t touch anything. I’ll sit in the kitchen.’  
He nodded. ‘Thank you, Butter.’  
She followed him into the kitchen, relieved and apprehensive, and he built up the fire and made it bright, and picked up the empty kettle.  
‘She’d just put on a cup of tea,’ he said, and for a moment his whole frame was so stiff with grief and anger that Butter thought he’d throw the thing he held. But he stepped over to an urn in the corner and filled the kettle up, and pointed out the tea to her. Butter realised with a shock that he meant her to brew herself a cup of his sister’s tea.  
‘Bar the door behind me,’ he said, ‘and don’t let anyone in until I come.’  
‘Yes,’ she said.  
‘Thank you for this,’ he said inexplicably, and clunked away.

***  
Gorn came back with a tall thin white-haired man with a bookish air and a stout woman of the kind Butter imagined made buns. They looked gravely around the room and Butter, who had risen when she heard voices and was standing in the kitchen, looking into the sitting room, did not dare move for fear of disturbing their shocked silence. The woman had tears rolling down her face.  
‘Shall I uncover her?’ asked Gorn softly, and they both shook their heads. ‘Come into the kitchen, then.’  
Butter wanted to run. She had been crying and she knew that it would show on her face, and what right had she to cry?

The woman came right up to her and took her hand in both her own. ‘I’m so glad he wasn’t alone when he found her,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you.’  
Butter stood petrified and could only nod.  
‘This is my friend Butter,’ said Gorn, ‘and my sister’s friends, Lamanacht and Mistress Mer.’  
‘There isn’t any time to be lost, Laela,’ said the old man - Lamanacht. Gorn nodded.  
‘I just want your opinion,’ said Gorn. ‘The jewelry she wore was gone. That necklace she never took off and her ring. But if you’ll come - ‘ 

He led the way firmly to the front room with its awful rocking chair, did not look at the chair as he passed it, but went straight to a low chest in the corner. It wasn’t even locked. Inside was a glowing pile of dim flowers, embroidered onto white.  
‘Her handkerchiefs that she’d been sewing for months,’ said Mistress Mer, wiping her face. ‘It was a commission from the king.’  
‘Probably the most valuable thing in the cottage, but one,’ said Gorn, ‘and not disturbed.’ He reached into the snowy folds and, under them, pulled out a gleaming wooden box, embossed with a silver rose, and with silver on the corners and clasp. Inside it, Butter knew before it was opened, was a silver medallion, awarded by the Valleran king for civilian honour. It was dull in the candlelight, dangling from Master Gorn’s hand.   
‘Good God.’ Lamanacht swung away from the sight of it with his hand over his eyes.  
‘I don’t understand,’ said Mistress Mer. ‘The chest wasn’t even locked. He didn’t look?’  
Gorn said, ‘No.’  
Lamanacht swore. Gently, Gorn put the medallion back into its box. He smoothed out the velvet ribbon. Then he closed the box, replaced it in the trunk, and folded the handkerchief he had disturbed.  
‘It wasn’t a thief,’ said Mistress Mer, as realisation came.  
Gorn shook his head. ‘Per Halla’s gone to alert the Ashgurdian border. Butter here - ‘ Everyone looked at her, she wanted to run, ‘ - brought my mind to the Kathrisi. They must be informed. I’ll ask them to help me find whoever did this.’   
‘But your sister,’ whispered Mistress Mer, ‘you won’t stay - you won’t stay for her?’ 

Gorn had taken that lady - stout and scared and stupid, as she was - he had taken that lady’s head gently between his hands. He’d looked at her and said ‘I need you to do this for me, Lilian. I need you to do what’s right for Tess, and bury her, and be a sister to her now like you always were. I can’t do it cause I have to find out who did this. Someone came into my big sister's house and killed her where she sat. I can’t waste a moment. Can you understand that?’

Mistress Mer burst into tears and then Gorn was holding her close to his chest, and Lamanacht came up and laid a hand on each of their shoulders. They stood like an island in the ruined sitting room. Butter was an invader in this moment, dirty and awkward and loud, and so she turned and fled. 

***  
The black forest scared her, so she sank down to the ground with her back against one of the pillar trees at the corner of the house. As the evening passed she heard the front door open and close - more people coming. She shivered against the chill, but would not move. She liked the way the darkness hid her. 

She had no idea what would happen to her now. It wasn’t right that worries for herself should choke her when Miss Theresa lay dead, but even her grief for Miss Theresa was tainted by guilt. It was safer not to feel anything, when everything she felt was wrong. So she sat on the ground and wrapped that heavy cloak Gorn had got from god knows where, those thousands of years ago in the first inn, and waited.

The front door had opened and shut a few more times, and the murmur of voices had risen and fallen, and Butter had even caught herself awake on a gasp, when the back door opened.  
‘Butter?’   
It was Gorn’s voice. Butter let him stand there in a stream of orange light, floating on the desire to remain invisible for long moments. ‘Butter?’ he called again.  
She said ‘Here.’

Gorn came round the corner of the house and peered for her. The window cast a soft glow over his lean form, but Butter knew she was barely distinguishable in the gloom. He came and sat beside her, leaning against the tree with a long sigh.  
‘Here,’ he said, and passed her a bowl. It was porridge. ‘Only thing there was enough of to feed everyone,’ he said, and it took a moment for Butter to realise that he was apologising for the food.   
‘Thank you,’ she said. The wind gushed in the trees around them. She forced herself to eat some of it.  
Gorn said: ‘Darn it, I’m so sorry, Butter.’  
Butter jerked round to stare at him - ‘What for?’  
‘I’m so sorry for dragging you into - this. And you - you found her. You shouldn’t have had to do that.’   
‘That’s enough,’ said Butter sharply. ‘You don’t have to comfort me, on top of everyone else. She’s your sister.’ Her voice broke and she found, furiously, that she was crying again. She hoped he couldn’t tell. ‘Go back inside, Gorn,’ she said, when she could trust her throat not to croak.

He did not go back inside. He sat with her a little longer, then asked:  
‘What do you think, then? About the - about the medallion. Am I right?’  
Dear God. How can I know what to say? It’s all awful.  
‘I - ‘ it would be easier, maybe, to believe it wasn't personal. No shadow would fall on Tess’s memory, like that. ‘I’ve known people,’ she said cautiously, ‘who hurt, and even kill, because they - well, for no good reason. Because they can. Because they like it.’  
‘Mh,’ said Gorn. ‘I did think of that. But it was just the one blow. And they left so quick. And they did take the jewelry. You’d tell my sister from her ring.’   
A miserable silence came over them. ‘I’ve been trying to see a way around it,’ Butter said at last. ‘But I think you’re right. I think someone was paid to kill her.’  
‘They didn’t try to pretend otherwise. So they were sloppy. Or they didn’t think anyone would care.’ Gorn rose to his feet. ‘They didn’t reckon on me. I’m leaving tonight. I can get a few hours in after moonrise.’   
Butter knew how it would be, but her stomach still shrank with a sudden chill. ‘To the Kathrisi?’  
‘The Kathrisi ambassador,’ he said. ‘Then the king.’  
Butter stood up, too. ‘The king?   
‘I'm due to report to the palace in a fortnight or so. I was going to spend my leave with - with her. I'll get there early, see if he can spare a squadron.’  
‘Right.’ That was it, then. There was no way in the seven hells she would be caught dead at the palace, never never never. Suppose this is fate making it clear to me, she thought, that it's the end of being with Gorn. It should be easy. It should be terrifying. But all Butter felt as she looked up at Gorn’s face was unbearably sad. 

Cold light sheeted down onto them; the moon had burst from a cloud. Gorn's features fell abruptly into shadow.  
‘Oh!’ He outstretched his arms to her on a cry, but then drew himself back and let them fall, remembering, perhaps, she wasn’t as innocent as her teary face made her seem.  
‘Is it so bad, little Butter?’ He said softly. 

Butter wanted to scream at him. Why did he care how she felt when his world had fallen to pieces? Why couldn't he let her disappear? The pain twisted all the way down into her.  
‘Would I slow you down, so very much?’ She said instead, and hated herself.   
He looked at her, and rubbed his face, and said ‘We’d be marching for hours yet, in the dark. You'd have a pack.’   
‘I could do it,’ she said.  
He said, ‘Well, guess I can't leave you here.’


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PALS  
> I’m so sorry that this is a day late! I went in for some last minute revisions and didn’t quite manage them in time :/ next chapter will be up on time for sure.
> 
> Also - fight scenes. Ew. V difficult to write. (Nothing intense or gory though, don’t worry.) 
> 
> Enjoy! Xxx

He could’ve, Butter thought, staring at the fire he’d made. He could’ve just left me there, and there wouldn’t be a single soul that thought worse of him for it. Not me, for certain.

She'd gone as fast as she could tonight but she knew that the grim silence beside her could've gone faster. He hadn't said a word, and nor had she, fairly running over the silver lacework of the forest floor. Gorn seemed to know his way even in the thickly shadowed landscape, and even though she knew a murderer was loose in the woods, Butter couldn’t bring herself to be nervous. Gorn, in this mood, made her think of the Sky-warrior, or Brinhild, or Gawayne - the heros who had haunted her girlhood, tall and fearless.

And after all, was this so very far off? She knew, now, that he was not some wandering mercenary or simple officer. The Laela name and title, Butter remembered, might be landless and in decline, but it was ancient, and that counted for a lot with the people who mattered. Gorn was a nobleman, and the King had given him the honour of Captaincy of the Guard, even though he’d spent the wartime away from any seat of power. So it turns out that Gorn must be a war-hero. 

Butter had walked beside him in the dark, herself living proof of his kindness, and was not at all surprised. 

He had stopped abruptly, in a clear place under trees, and told her to set out his sleeping-roll while he disappeared. She had been afraid, then, yes, jerking to face every shifting sound. But he had come back with bracken, and a branch, and spent a dim quarter hour lighting a fire. It flared up in the damp circle he had cleared and settled a glow over the harshness of his face. Butter didn’t know much about the outdoors but she was quite sure lighting a fire should not be either so easy or so important. But perhaps there were wolves in the woods, or other things that should be scared away. She daren’t ask any questions, though - she hadn’t made a single sound. She only watched Gorn. 

So when he rose from the fire, her eyes flew to him.  
‘Only one bedroll,’ he said gruffly. Butter nodded warily. ‘Too cold to sleep on the ground. It’s big enough for two.’

He meant to share the bedroll. Panic rolled over Butter in a sick wave - she was pretty certain this wasn’t a euphemism, which only meant she had a whole night of getting things wrong, right up next to him, and no chance of getting anything right. Damn Gorn for bringing me with him, she thought, There’s no reason for him to have to deal with this.

Out of the corner of his eye she saw him take off his boots and his coat. Well, it would be worse to disturb him by struggling into the sleeping roll when he was asleep, so Butter rose and unlaced her skirt and slid off the sleeves and untied her bodice. She could feel imprints in her sides from where it had dug into her for almost two days. Gorn was lying in the heavy padded sleeping bag, and he wadded up his coat to serve as pillow, so Butter knelt down and copied him by folding up her cloak, and then she slid in next to him and tried not to breathe too loudly. 

The fire crackled, the wind made the forest awash with whisper. Gorn breathed next to her, and they were pressed all the way from shoulder to foot. She dared not move. 

It’s hard, she thought brutally, to be helpless for him. I want to help him. Instead I can only lie here and hope I’m not a bother. 

It took a while, but she managed to doze off, only to wake with start not long after. She darted a bleary glance at Gorn next to her. He was staring straight up with his eyes wide open. He caught her eye and smiled wearily in the dull orange of the fire. ‘Did I wake you? I’m sorry.’  
‘You didn’t wake me,’ she said slowly. ‘Have you not slept, Gorn?’  
He shrugged. ‘Can’t seem to. Wish I could.’  
Butter heartbeat thudded into her ears. ‘I - I could maybe help. With that.’ 

Gorn searched her face for a moment. Then he nodded. He actually nodded. Something gushed free into Butter’s limbs, some strange mix of relief and fear and confidence. She could do this. She could do it for Gorn, at last, and take his mind off of everything. 

Sitting up, Butter lifted her shift above her head and tossed it aside, leaving herself bare. The cold air hit her and prickled at her skin, and she turned to lean on one arm and reach for Gorn - but Gorn stared at her with his mouth open. She cringed into herself, aware of the bruises on her side and the marks littering her skin.

‘Butter - ‘ he said, and coughed a little. He took her hand in his - her free hand, her right one - and kissed it quickly. ‘That’s not - ‘ he kept his gaze down and turned away, tenting the blanket with his side and putting his back to her. ‘That’s alright, Butter.’ He said into the dark. 

Don’t let the spiral start, Butter, she thought as despair and shame threatened. You know what to do now - just focus on the next thing. 

She put her hands - they were warm, she knew - she put her warm hands under his shirt and slowly rucked it up. His sides were rough with some kind of scarring, and he shivered (pray god with desire, and not with disgust!) when she touched him, but she did not let herself pause. His back was a broad, gleaming expanse of muscle, and she pressed herself against it, skin to skin. He was so warm. She tangled her leg with his and swept her cheek along his smooth skin, but didn't dare move her hand from his stomach. She could feel the hair there, the hard muscle, and the wild pitter-patter of his warrior heart. Ah, but she’d set him running nervous - huge hearty warrior man who could have taken her ten times over since he bought her, but had only given her things, food and warmth and stories - he trembled at the touch of her hand.

Butter found herself fluttering chaste little kisses onto his shoulder blade, and then he was rolling over and he was fixing her with a little lopsided smile. The next thing, whatever it was, flew from Butter’s mind. They were so close it felt dangerous, and she didn't know why - it wasn’t like he was moving, he was just lying on his side regarding her - flickers of light and the smell of him. She smiled back. Gorn reached out and for a moment she thought he would stroke her face - but he cupped her chest, and his hand was cool and gentle against her burning flesh.

He made a noise, and his eyes closed, and that’s no cause to feel disappointed, Butter, because he can imagine whoever he likes. That’s good. You’ll be whoever he wants. 

She ran her hand down his side again and down to the waistband of his trousers, and Gorn’s eyes flew open. He took his hand away from her and caught her own in it and interlaced the fingers. ‘Butter,’ he said, like a snapping spell. He chuckled suddenly, shaking his head, then leaned in and kissed her on the forehead. ‘You wonderful, _crazy_ woman. Will you - ‘ he smiled again and rubbed his eyes ruefully. ‘Will you put on a shirt?’  
‘Course I will,’ said Butter, baffled and pleased and a little hurt. She sat up, clutching the cover to her chest, and slipped on her shift again. Was the sight of her so awful? Or did he mean to stop? She had felt his interest, men couldn’t hide it - she lay back down and looked inquiringly at him.  
‘You know I thought you were gonna tell me a story or something,’ he said, ‘but - you’re full of surprises.’ She hardly knew how a whore getting naked was a surprise but the warmth in his tone was a candle to the moth of her.  
‘Good surprises?’ she asked, and she’d got out practice with purring like that; it was a little wobbly. 

Gorn hesitated. ‘If you were to - roll over’ he said, and then froze with a look of deep dismay on his face, and oddly, impossibly, Butter felt mirth bubbling up. ‘I only mean that - I could hold you. I - I think that would help me to sleep. But only if - if it wouldn’t make it hard for you to - ‘ Butter drew his arm over her waist and tucked her back against his chest. She wondered what he would do, but he settled down, pulling her close and curving himself around her with light little touches. Butter realised that her heart was going fast, and she laughed at herself, and pillowed her head on her arms. He did just want to hold her.

Silence fell again; the wind had died down. The firelight, burning down, made the trees overhead seem a mile above them. Presently Butter felt a wetness on her neck, and then Gorn behind her gave a big shudder. He was crying, she realised, and her hand stole down to clasp his, lying on her stomach. She didn't say a thing, and soon he was shaking, wracked against her by the sobs he smothered in her hair. Butter didn’t move, didn’t listen to any of the suggestions her panicked brain made her, only covered his hand with hers and let the great aching sadness swell into the dark. 

***  
She was woken by Gorn moving out of the sleeping roll. No, that’s not true, because she had been awake after a fashion before that, lying on his chest and feeling his arms around her and praying it was still night so that it would not end. But then she heard birdsong, and so it was not a surprise when she felt Gorn slide her gently to his side so he could get up. She pretended sleep for a moment more. Grey was filtering through the leaves above them and she forced herself into wakefulness. They stripped the camp quickly, wolfing down breakfast and burying the ashes of their fire. 

‘I think this might actually be a Kathrisi path,’ Gorn said as they followed a tiny track - no more than the suggestion of a way easier than others through bracken and dead leaves.  
‘Ah,’ said Butter.  
‘There’s no need to be on tiptoes around me,’ he said mildly, looking up at the trees. ‘I was a loose wheel last night, and I’m sorry for it. But there’ll be no more of that.’  
‘I - you could behave however you liked and - no one would be surprised,’ she said, and winced. ‘That’s not what I meant. I meant - don’t feel bad. I mean you must feel bad, I understand of course, how could you not? - but, not - I mean don’t feel bad about me.’  
Gorn said, ‘Right. Well, I won’t feel bad about you if you won’t about me.’  
This was harder to swallow, and a large part of Butter wondered why it mattered. But men had their pride. ‘Alright,’ she said.  
‘I mean it,’ he said earnestly to the oak they passed. ‘I'm treating this as an, like it’s an - a sort of assignment. To keep me sane. And you - getting you settled safe - is part of the assignment. Afterwards will take care of itself.’

The sun rose swiftly above them, and Butter kept silence.  
‘You must think it a brutal thing,’ said Gorn harshly. ‘Putting it all aside like that. Ignoring it. You must think it’s shocking.’  
Butter remembered Gorn shaking against her in the night, and under that lay other memories, another body, shaking. ‘You don’t know what I think,’ she said. ‘I understand.’ Gorn threw a look at her over his shoulder, meeting her eyes for the first time that morning. But he let her have the final word. 

***

After perhaps an hour they burst out upon a dry white road. 

‘Cut out a loop,’ said Gorn. Butter only panted, grateful to have a smooth terrain underfoot. Her water bottle thumped, almost empty, on her hip. ‘Wait a moment,’ said Gorn and Butter pulled up, eager for even the shortest pause. 

Gorn strode to the woods on the other side of the road and came back holding a long stick. ‘Hold this a moment,’ said Gorn, and eyed up her grip on it. He took it back and pulled a penknife from his pocket to strip a couple inches of bark from it near one end. ‘Try again,’ he said, and when she took it again she saw he’d made her a smooth grip at about the right height for a stalf. ‘Should help,’ he said.  
She said, ‘Thank you.’ 

Maybe it did help, at any rate she had caught her breath by the time they heard the river. She saw the ground before them shelve away into a mist-filled gulf, as the road narrowed, darkening where the condensation dampened the dust. A dim bridge leapt over the gulf, wide enough for two people maybe but not a cart, maybe not even sturdy enough for a horse. They hadn't taken two steps along it, however, when a darkness rose up from the mist and confronted them.

‘Hello my dear, dear friends!’ 

Butter shivered, and the darkness congealed into the shape of two hulking men. They had the same barrel-chests, the same long, matted hair, and the same sun-leathered skin, but one carried a thorny club and the other had a grimy spear.  
‘It's a ten silver toll,’ said the one who had greeted them. He was shorter than his companion, but he looked both strong and smug. Butter, checking his stance as she always did, noticed a triple-finger iron ring on his hand, set with spikes. He rubbed his paunch with it in little loving circles.  
‘Are you Kathrisi?’ Asked Gorn.  
The silent man spat on the slats of the bridge. He had not taken his eyes off Butter, this whole time. The leader said: ‘One of those tree fondlers? Course not. Now gimme the money and there’ll be no fuss.’

Butter’s eyes flickered to Gorn. This might be the moment his calm snapped, and she didn't know if she’d be safe when he did. 

‘This is actually Kathrisi jurisdiction,’ said Gorn with a little apologetic lift to his shoulders, ‘so you can't be toll guards.’

What a plot twist, thought Butter, suppressing the roll of her eyes. 

‘Maybe we are, maybe we’re not,’ the man leered. ‘Give me the money, or find another bridge.’ The set of his shoulders squared up; he leaned the club on his shoulder; the spear behind him was lowered to point at them. Butter felt a little chill of fear go through her stomach.  
‘I’m afraid I have no coin on me,’ said Gorn, mildly but with a note Butter had never heard before in his voice. Anxiety upped its tick under her skin; what if they did have to lose hours going round to another bridge? And because of that the murderer escaped? What would Gorn do then?  
‘Shame,’ said the false guard. ‘Maybe you'll have to find another way to pay me.’ His eyes drifted over to Butter and she stepped forward just as the word ‘No’ left Gorn’s mouth. Butter froze, roiling with frustration. Here was the solution, one thing she could finally do for him, but she dare not move for fear of another scene like the inn.  
‘Give us an hour each with the girl, and I'll let you through,’ said the spokesman.  
Gorn said, ‘No.’  
‘In a rush, are you?’ The false guard smiled a sticky smile. His mute companion was still looking at Butter. He was not looking at her face. ‘Well, maybe we’ll make it one hour. I’m sure she could take care of the two of us at once.’  
‘Trust me,’ said Butter before Gorn could refuse again, ‘it’ll be ten minutes, tops.’  
‘Insolence,’ said Gorn conversationally, and Butter’s limbs went totally cold before she realized he was looking past her to the men on the bridge, ‘I never could stand it,’ he said. He shrugged off his pack, ‘Hold this for me, would you?’

Butter took it, and Gorn strode up to the man with the club, completely ignoring the spear, and said: ‘Let’s keep this between us, shall we?’ Then he punched him in the jaw.

‘Stop!’ Butter shouted without thinking, for Gorn was older and more slender than these thugs and he would be hurt, the fool, the honourable fool - but the man reeled back and Gorn whipped round and had the other man’s spear on the ground faster than Butter could see. 

Gorn didn’t give them time to regroup. He caught the swing of the club in one hand and brought his other arm down in a crack on the first thug’s elbow. He sagged and dropped the club, but then Gorn was fending off the blows of the silent giant, dodging and striking at the soft stomach. 

He was preoccupied. Butter saw the leader stop cradling his broken arm and launch himself back into the fray, but it was all Gorn could do to avoid the swinging arms of the other guard. She saw it coming, the blow on to Gorn’s unprotected side, but it still struck through her with cold shock when the attacker landed a savage hit to Gorn’s kidneys with his iron-bound fist.

Gorn jerked back, curving over. She could not stand it. She dropped the pack. The two men advanced on Gorn, and he backed up the bridge. The spear was there on the ground. 

The tall, silent one went in for a punch, and Gorn caught his fist and swung him into his friend, knocking them both into confusion. Butter picked up the spear.

In the first noise she had heard him make, the tall toll guard roared and charged at Gorn, who dodged - straight into the fists of his friend.  
‘Ha!’ Yelled the spokesman; he drove his fist up into Gorn’s stomach. Gorn bent all the way over, choking in pain, and his arms were wrestled behind his back. 

‘That was stupid,’ said the short, smug toll guard. Gorn was panting raggedly, jerked up against the tall thug’s chest. He said nothing, carefully avoided meeting Butter’s eye. She readied herself to run. The spokesman leaned in and said: ‘We’ll let you go. But we’re keeping the bitch.’

_Thwack!_

The spear was heavier than she had expected but the momentum of her swift dart forwards made that an advantage: the false toll guard tottered, cursing, to the ground, hands pressed to his head.

Faster than Butter could realise it was happening, Gorn had the other man pressed against the railing of the bridge. 

‘What do you think, Butter?’ He asked calmly, all trace of his former panting gone, ‘Mercy?’ 

Butter remembered the feeling of the foot on her side on Crunt Street, and saw again the moment when the spiked fist had hit into Gorn. 

She said ‘No mercy!’ 

And Gorn lifted the man up and tipped him over the bridge into the ravine.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO 
> 
> So when I set out to post this I had these first ten chapters written. They form a definite PART ONE in my brain. 
> 
> PART TWO has a couple of chapters written, but I want to get a store of chapters written so that I can continue with my regular update schedule. SO I will be taking the next two weeks to write, polish, and sort out PART TWO in my brain - in a kind of mini-hiatus. The next chapter will be posted on the 30th. 
> 
> I'm excited about PART TWO - we get a whole bunch of new characters who will stretch and spark off Butter and Gorn, PLOT PLOT PLOT, maybe some answers who knows?, ~politics~, a hike up of the UST, idk MAYBE some sexual encounters for Butter that AREN'T dubcon WOULDN'T THAT BE A CURVEBALL, more worldbuilding, and of course lots of pining and angst and Gorn being a bit of a cinnamon roll.
> 
> That being said, while I have direction and an outline, part two is still v fluid - so if there's something you're curious about or you'd like to see - let me know! Inspiration might hit. And on the topic of inspiration - any comments and thoughts you share with me are SO MOTIVATING, as we all know. I'd love to chat to you during the two weeks of writing that lie ahead.
> 
> GREAT? GREAT. ENJOY. xxxx

He panted as he turned back to Butter. Seems you missed the sparring ring more than you’d thought to, he said to himself wryly, revelling in the thrum that still shook his frame. Oh but it felt good, to use the anger. Butter was staring at him. 

‘Best get that,’ said Gorn, pointing to the pack abandoned back on the cliff. Silently, Butter picked her way around the man she’d downed with one blow (one!) of the spear-shaft. How she’d surprised him! 

Gorn took a moment to make sure the false toll guard wasn’t bleeding from the head. He’d be fine, Gorn reflected, but it’d be a while before he was up to throwing his friend a rope. Who’d have thought Butter would’ve just run in like that! It beat all.

He was grinning as he held out his hand for the pack, but she flinched away from him. Gorn felt some of his elation drain away. He could see Butter realise her mistake, one fear replacing another before she smoothed out her features. ‘Hey there,’ he said, gentle and suddenly weary. She swung his pack over to him and then forced herself to draw near and tuck her arm into his. The last time she’d done that, Gorn realised, had been back when she thought he owned her. 

‘Hey now, what's the matter?’ He asked as they started moving again, leaving the remaining toll guard stirring feebly behind them. 

‘Nothing’s the matter,’ she said, and Gorn knew he shouldn't push but he had no energy to pretend.  
‘You're afraid of me again. Why?’

She met his eyes, and her face was stone-smooth again. ‘I’m not afraid of you,’ she said, and before he could challenge her lie she added ‘You’re a kind man,’ and he was struck silent. Some of the trouble left her face but she returned her eyes on the ground.

‘What is it sits so heavy on your brow?’ He asked at last. ‘Anything - anything at all?’  
Her voice was low enough that he wanted to stoop to catch it when she replied. ‘I just wonder how they knew?’  
‘How who knew?’   
‘The men on the bridge. I'm dressed all respectable. How'd they know what I was? Do you think it was my hair? Or that I was alone with you? Is it not respectable? I'm sure I've seen men and women making journeys alone together.’

A gush of feeling rose up in him, and it was strong enough to overwhelm the ice in which he'd frozen himself. ‘Butter! I could've been travelling with a princess and he'd've said the same thing. He was disgusting.’  
‘A princess?’ She looked up at him as if she was about to laugh and his relief was palpable in his chest. He hated it when she was sad, Gorn realized, and found himself matching her smile - ‘If you don't want anyone to know that you used to be a whore,’ he said, ‘my only advice is to stop announcing it in inns!’

The little huff of breath she released was more surprised than amused, Gorn thought, and she still didn't meet his eyes. We can't have that, he thought, rising to a challenge. He said, ‘In fact, he probably thought you were my daughter.’

Butter actually jerked her head up and stared at him. ‘No,’ she said in slightly strangled tones. ‘I couldn't - I never meant - anyway I'm too old - you’re too young!’   
‘Oh,’ said Gorn, who knew he was past his prime. sun and strain and scars had stripped his youth away before its time, and after all he'd never been handsome.  
He asked, ‘How - how old are you?’   
‘I'm - well, to be true, I'm twenty four.’   
This was older than he had imagined, but still far too young to make anything like what she had tried last night come from anything other than fear. Or pity, maybe, and the thought burned.   
‘I'm forty,’ he said, ‘so nearly old enough to father you. You don't need to flatter me.’ She blinked and Gorn backtracked ‘Ah, that came out like I’m angry. I'm not. And also,’ this was harder to say, ‘if you - I'm happy to give you an arm, I'd never mind it, but if you’d - well, if you’d rather not hold on to me I don't think anything of it.’ 

She didn't let go of his arm, but she didn't say anything either. Gorn didn't know how they'd got back to this somber silence, and then, feeling the heaviness of his heart drag against him again, he wondered how he'd ever broken it, how he'd ever managed a true smile. He fought against the guilt. Tess wouldn't be been mad at a smile. Tess would understand that there's no accounting for people. Specially not Butter. 

‘Master Gorn, you don't know anything about me,’ said Butter all in a rush. ‘Not my age or my - my real name. And you won't let me give you anything. But still you've been real good to me. Real good. So I feel like - ‘ she took a gulp of air, ‘ - well, I should let you know that there are people who are looking for me. Bad people. Both sides of the border. And - if I try to set out on my own they'll find me. I've tried it before, master, and I can't -’ 

Her voice was sucked out of her for a moment. Gorn had a weird feeling like she must be talking to someone else. He couldn't see how she would show so much of herself to him, of all people, who scared her.   
‘I’m not real good,’ she said eventually, a little steadier, ‘at being free. I don’t fit. They’ll find me. I need to stay invisible, and there’s nothing invisible like a slave. So I’ve been thinking.’ She paused again and looked at him. ‘I don’t want to assume anything, master Gorn, or - or weigh you with more troubles. You spoke of making me free, yesterday, getting me a job, and I don’t expect you to do anything for me now. You gotta catch the murderer. But I’m hoping that maybe I could stay your slave?’

Gorn’s brain had gone totally blank. Butter took a breath of the silence and rushed on, blushing up her neck, ‘Until I find someone else to buy me. You won’t have to do anything but sign a paper. I just. I thought you should know. Of course you do what you like but I’m - I need a master and I’d like it if you got money from it.’

Every direction Gorn’s mind turned he hit a wall of bafflement. Butter wanted a master. She wanted to sell herself off. She thought - and this tightened little coils of anger in his belly - that she couldn’t be free, like something was wrong with her. Questions buzzed up in spirals from his stomach to between his ears. 

The important facts were these, he decided in a moment: Butter was in danger. She needed someone to protect her. And she wanted to stay with him. 

It would be easy to feel the pull of these responsibilities, divided loyalties and desires, like weights round his neck. But Gorn had not pulled Turmagil through a siege, arriving into peacetime through starvation and loneliness and fire, by running from the things that needed doing. 

‘Thank you for telling me,’ he said. Butter nodded without looking at him. ‘When we crossed that bridge,’ he continued, ‘we went into Vallera. You got freed without either of us doing a thing.’ 

Butter clenched the sides of her cloak with whitening hands. Gorn said: ‘But I got you into this mess, and I promise I’ll get you safely out of it.’ 

She nodded again, and he clasped the hand on his arm. ‘You hear that, Butter? I won’t let anyone hurt you.’   
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Gorn.’

***  
They ate a noon meal still walking. It was harsh, perhaps, but Gorn wanted patrols to be sent out before the light failed this evening. Butter was flagging as he had known that she would, but did not complain. She had drunk too much of her own water early on and now was going thirsty to stretch out what little was left. 

Somehow he knew she would not ask to stop, nor would she ask for some of his water; when he drank, she looked away. It was characteristic of Butter, this silent stubbornness, he thought, and wondered why it was endearing. 

‘Sir,’ she said, straight out of the blue. He met her eyes. ‘I - is it wrong to call you ‘master’, here? Is it - would you prefer ‘Lord Laela’?’ 

Of course. The title was his, now. It had been Tess’s, and he only Lord Gorn the little brother, but now he was the only one left. With a sudden thick clawing anger he hated his station, hated that it was his now, hated the title that had brought Tess to court, because it was the court that had driven her out here, into a rocking chair in a dark glen. 

‘Gorn,’ he said, ‘will do.’ 

One glance at Butter’s face told him that she would not speak again. Damn it.

Who could it be, he wondered, that was searching for her? An owner, maybe, that she’d fled from? Maybe a vengeful husband? It’d have to be someone pretty powerful if she was at risk both sides of the border. Gorn believed her, he did, but what kind of trouble could a small-town prostitute get into, really? Ten years ago Gorn would’ve wondered about gangs, but he war had, he thought, thinned them down. She was educated, that much was clear - Gorn recalled the list she’d drawn up: the script she had was beautiful. So not always a prostitute? Or at least, not always in the kind of establishment he’d found her. Girls on street corners didn't often know even how to read, but Gorn knew that lords and ladies had their desires, and he had heard of the trade that grew up to meet them. Maybe Butter had been a courtesan who heard the wrong thing, and had been driven to a life of slavery because of it.

Working at the mystery like a puzzle distracted Gorn from the pains of travel, and from the specter of Tessie in her rocking chair, and so he indulged it. Maybe it made him careless, or maybe they were just too good at being silent, but it wasn't until Butter took a sharp gasp that Gorn realized there were three arrows pointing at his heart.

Two men and a woman, all with long blonde hair bound back, all in leather armour, and all with drawn bows, stood in their path. Kathrisi. He saw two more marking them in his peripheral vision. ‘Butter,’ he murmured, edging towards her, ‘get behind me.’  
‘They're behind us, too, master,’ she whispered dryly. ‘But thanks.’  
‘Hellaga!’ Shouted the woman, glowering - ‘hellaga san!’ One of the men marched forwards and pushed their hands into the air with the tip of his strung arrow. He stepped up close to Gorn and, smartly, pulled Gorn’s sword from its scabbard.  
‘I'm on king’s business,’ said Gorn. ‘I want to report a crime.’ He looked full face to face but none of them seemed to understand. ‘Please,’ he tried again, ‘I’m trying to get to the Sheriff.’ 

At this the woman’s head snapped up and her gaze hardened to a glare. 

‘My sister was killed on your land,’ Gorn said, ‘I'm just looking for justice.’ Her expression did not change and she turned away from him, shouting some command to her followers, who came up behind them and shoved them to their knees. Gorn did not resist; he needed the help of these people. 

‘I think you've mistook me,’ he said urgently, ‘I'm coming to ask for reinforcements from the Sheriff - ‘ but this was apparently the wrong thing to say, because the captain marched in with a huff of anger and gave him a sharp backhand across the face. 

‘Oh!’ That was Butter’s voice beside him, and then her voice again in a stream of sound he didn't understand. Gorn blinked back the automatic tears to see the Kathrisi scouts all staring at her in shock. The woman drew herself up coldly and spoke, too quick for Gorn to distinguish words in the foreign language, and Butter replied in that same language, angrily, sharply. He was reminded of her furious hiss at him, years ago it seemed, in front of the inn when she had stuck him - but that had been a burst of sparks and this was a steady low burning flame. 

The Kathrisi woman waved a hand and some of her men stood down. Butter said something else, something that sounded remarkably like a command. Her face was stern, with a little disdainful lift on one side of her mouth, and she looked, in his sideways glance, foreign, imperious - familiar. How on earth did she know to speak Kathrisi? He’d never met anyone who could speak a single word of it.

Clearly the Kathrisi warriors were thinking along similar lines. They seemed stunned, the tips of their arrows sagging in the hands. An exchange of short, sharp sentences between Butter and the Kathrisi leader followed, and then Butter turned to him and hissed:  
‘Give me a bill of credit from the king!’  
Gorn blinked - ‘What?’  
‘Bill of credit! Or a summons - that would be better. Now!’ She only just managed to restrain the urgency of her tone, and so Gorn fumbled for his leather wallet and withdrew both a bill of credit and the formal letter of invitation. Butter did not look at them, only handed them to the Kathrisi woman, who touched the seals and frowned at the script as if she could read it.

‘Aga unct’ she said at last, or what seemed like it to Gorn’s ear, and pointed to his name on the paper. There was another exchange between Butter and the warrior, and then his documents had disappeared into the Kathrisi’s cloak and the warriors surrounded them in what Gorn recognised as a guard-march, and they were moving. 

‘You did it - just like that!’ said Gorn under his breath to Butter. She nodded, but he thought she looked rather grim. ‘I’d have been target practice without you,’ Gorn said, hoping for one of her little snorts, but she only looked pale and gave her head a slight shake.   
‘They’re taking us to the sheriff,’ she said, and reached, not for his arm as before, but for his hand.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI GUYS I'M BACK
> 
> HOPE YOU ENJOY

The march the Kathrisi set was a quick one. They scorned the road, preferring to pick out an unpredictable route through the trees and underbrush. There was no way that four could walk abreast in this forest, but any time the guard at his side parted from him, Gorn only noticed it when they slipped back into place. Swiftly, in near silence, they wove through the dappled forest, and after only about an hour’s march (when Gorn had thought to take two) they stepped into a clearing. 

Or was it a village? On all sides as they passed were houses made from clapboard, some thatched, some stretched with canvas, most with tarred slats. Almost all were twined in ivy and greenstuffs Gorn did not recognise, so that the houses looked as if they had simply grown up in the midst of their vegetable patches. It was a village, he decided slowly, a village receding into green as far as he looked, and the blonde Kathrisi who were out - pinning washing, perhaps, or elbow deep in riotous garden, watched the guards pass through with impassive faces. 

They twined through several garden-fringed paths, then again a well-trod path through the woods, before emerging into another clearing to be confronted by a thorny red brick establishment that Gorn had to blink several times to look at straight. It was a full story taller than anything else, covered with woody unblooming vines that could not hide the flashing bricks or the glittering windows. 

What was a townhouse doing here? It ought to be on a corner in the cool shade of a city street, or perhaps - he modified his thought as they skirted the house and he saw the tangle of gardens and stables behind it - a country manor seat. 

Most of the guards had melted away, Gorn realised, and he and Butter followed only the leader, who hailed a young woman in leather armour and seemed to ask for directions - then led them down the side of the house, through a green-painted wooden gate, into the stables.

The smell of a well-kept stable did an embarrassing amount to calm Gorn’s mind. 

There was a very tall woman brushing down a very fine horse in one of the stalls, and it was to her that they were brought. The leader stood to the side and waited, at attention, for the woman to finish her work with the horse. Butter slipped her hand from Gorn’s.

It was only when the stall door clinked shut and the tall woman turned to them that the leader spoke. She gave a short report in Kathrisi, handed over the papers, saluted, and left - leaving Butter and Gorn to the dark assessing gaze of this formidable woman and at least a dozen horses.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘My name is Shielda Macker. I am the wife of the Sheriff. What is your name?’

She held his documents in her hand, from which she had doubtless already obtained all his information. Gorn recognised the technique of an interrogator.   
He smiled at her. ‘Gorner Laela,’ he said, and at her enquiring glance Butter whispered her own name. Gorn brought his hand to rest gently on her back.   
‘Butter,’ repeated the woman. She had an accent that made her words sound precise and crisp. Her blonde plaits were tight lines over her shoulders. ‘Butter Laela?’ 

Butter flinched and shifted her angle under Gorn’s hand.

‘I lied,’ she said clearly. ‘I told your soldiers that I was Lord Laela’s wife so that they would allow us both onto your territory. We’re not married. I'm his - vassal.’ She dropped Shielda Macker’s gaze and looked down into the straw. ‘I was not acting under orders and so Lord Laela has suffered just as much disrespect as you have. I will accept whatever punishment he sees fit.’

Gorn supposed that his profound amazement was evident in his face, for after one glance at his dumbfounded face Shielda Macker did not think it worthwhile to ask him any questions.  
She asked, ‘And why did you not simply explain to the patrol that you are a - vassal?’ Each word was tight and measured.   
‘The summons was only for one person,’ said Butter in a slow and baffled tone, still looking at the straw on the ground. ‘And the Kathrisi reputation for - excellent border control - precedes you.’  
‘Does it now,’ said Shielda Macker. Her every word gave Gorn a sense of rising danger. It brought back to him days of holding the keep at Turmagil, when every newcomer had been put in the scale and weighed for treachery, and each of Gorn’s own words had dropped, slowly, sedately, into the counterbalance.

Shielda Macker tilted her head to the side in a slow, calculated motion. She said, ‘And does the Kathrisi tongue precede us apace with our reputation?’ 

Neither the woman’s face, nor her inflection, changed as she said this, but Butter gave a huge shudder under Gorn’s hand. That was quite enough.

‘My lady,’ he said to Shielda Macker, ‘we are here to report a crime that took place on your land. We only ask for justice and once I know it has been carried out we will move on from here. We don't want to linger. We’re not spies.’

Shielda Macker flicked her wrist and began to roll up the summons. ‘If you are, you are bad ones,’ she said. ‘I will take you to my husband.’ 

She strode past them and down the aisle of the stable without looking back. Butter was all tense and high strung by his side as they set off after the woman. This wouldn’t do. When they appeared back into the regimental garden, he brushed against her and took her arm, hoping that he was reassuring. 

She extricated herself gently. ‘I’ll walk behind you,’ she whispered, and Gorn tried to quench the thrill of hurt that bloomed inside him. 

***

Sheriff Macker had a dusty office overlooking the village at the top of a spotless house. 

The entry hall had fairly buzzed with life. A young man with golden hair had greeted them, had silently and efficiently taken Gorn’s coat and Butter’s cloak, their packs, and even Butter’s roughshod staff, while Shielda Macker watched impassively. Three Kathrisi soldiers, muddy as from an excursion, passed them - and a woman was singing as she dusted the bannister - and a Valleran soldier passed by carrying, bizarrely, a basket full of folded bedlinen.

Altogether it seemed a busy, well-run house - but as they climbed up the blank, winding staircase to his study, a hush descended until Gorn felt his very breathing was loud. Shielda Macker - Lady Macker, Gorn supposed, for Sheriff of the Kathrisi was a Valleran political appointment - moved in near silence. 

When they slipped out into a dim wooden corridor Shielda Macker (‘Lady Macker’ did not seem to suit her at all, and would not stick in his mind) did not knock. She opened the door and expected them to follow her into the chamber behind it, full of sunlight and smears of dust. 

‘Dominic,’ she said. 

The Lord Sheriff Macker’s desk faced the door, which denied him the lovely view of the little green village. Gorn supposed that this was for the sake of the hulking, broad-shouldered silhouette the Sheriff made, backlit by the afternoon sun. When they came close enough to see his increasing paunch and balding head, Gorn felt confirmed in his suspicions. 

‘Dominic,’ Shielda Macker said again. ‘I met this man and his maidservant being escorted here. They wish to report a crime.’ She opened Gorn’s papers and placed them on the desk. 

Sheriff Macker did not lift up his head. He took a moment to read the papers, which gave Gorn time to wonder why Shielda had not given the Sheriff the exact nor the whole truth. 

‘Captain Laela!’ The Sheriff looked up, crinkling his small eyes even smaller with his smile.   
‘Not quite,’ said Gorn shortly. The Sheriff leaned back into his armchair. Gorn wondered how long it had taken to cart that chair through the forests.   
‘All in good time. It’s always a pleasure to welcome a kingsman out here. Captain of the King’s Guard, that’s some honour. Sit down, sit down, and tell me what I can do for you.’ 

Gorn sat in front of the desk, uncomfortably aware that both Butter and Shielda remained standing behind him. The Sheriff caught his backward glance and said, pleasantly but firmly:  
‘Shielda, why don’t you take the maid and get her settled into her master’s room. We’ll welcome the captain to stay the night with us.’ 

‘Of course, my dear,’ said Shielda, and the tone of the words ‘my dear’ struck dread into Gorn’s soul. Sheriff Macker might hold all the political power over the Kathrisi, but it was his wife who was dangerous.

***  
It was terribly, terribly inconvenient not to be a slave. 

She didn’t know the rules. Butter felt the anxiety of it claw at her every moment and in the silent corridor alone with this majestic foreign woman it was all Butter could do to push back the overwhelming tide. 

‘My lady,’ she said, for after all, slave or no, Gorn was still her master and she must consider his wishes, even under these cold blue eyes. ‘I don’t want to inconvenience you at all, but I think that Lord Laela would be more comfortable in his own room.’

No change came over Lady Shielda’s face. ‘You want a separate room?’

Butter shifted her weight and made herself meet the Lady’s gaze. ‘I don’t mind where you put me. But I have been in close quarters with my master while we travelled and I think that he would - that he would appreciate some space.’ 

Shielda turned and began to move down the corridor in that imperious way she had, expecting always to be followed. ‘What is the crime he is reporting to my husband?’ she asked without looking back.  
‘Yesterday, we found his sister sitting in her house with her throat cut.’ Butter said this almost without thinking, and then the meaning of it rushed at her all at once and she balled her fists into her skirt to stop them trembling.  
Lady Shielda said, ‘When?’   
‘I - it was about twilight. But she was still soft. So we think the murderer is loose in your woods.’

Shielda Macker swung round at the head of a flight of servant’s stairs and regarded Butter again. Butter made herself release her skirts and meet Shielda’s eyes.  
The lady said, ‘Is Captain Laela touching you in a way you do not like? Is that why you want a separate chamber?’

Butter gaped in shock. What could possibly have given this woman that idea? Was she trying to find something ugly about Gorn? Well, she could try her level best - there simply wasn’t anything. 

‘No! Nothing like that. He barely touches me at all.’ And if this last was tinged with bitterness, well, it had been too long a day for Butter to have herself fully under control. ‘I’d thank you,’ she said, feeling her weariness up to her eyeballs, ‘not to insult him.’

Lady Shielda’s eyes moved rapidly up and down Butter’s face. It dawned on Butter slowly that they had been speaking in Kathrisi. What a hole you’ve dug yourself, Butter. And no one to get you out. Longing for Gorn hit her desperately. 

‘I don’t trust you, little vassal-girl.’ said Lady Shielda. Her face did change then; Butter thought it softened. ‘I don’t know what it means to be a vassal, with no lands or soldiers to pledge.’  
‘I’m not a vassal,’ Butter said, and she knew her voice was harsh, and she did not care. ‘I don’t know why I said that. I’m a servant.’   
‘Yes,’ said the lady, unperturbed. ‘And I don’t want you roaming around my house by yourself. You may sleep on a mat in your master’s room, or you may have a bed with my own servants in the lower hall.’ 

Butter thought, quick as breath, of Gorn’s movement away from her in the sleeping roll, of the man who had flown so easily over the bridge, of the soldiers who even now thought that Gorn had stooped to marry her.   
‘The lower hall,’ she said.  
‘Good.’

Lady Shielda turned and began to descend the staircase. Butter followed. The lady’s voice echoed back to her along the twisting walls: ‘Above all: Do not, under any circumstances, let anyone know that you can speak our language.’ 

Her tone was leached of all feeling, hard and bloodless as a white stone. ‘The Sheriff himself can only know it because he is married to a Kathrisi. If anyone - anyone - finds out that a common servant speaks it, you will be taken for a spy and strung from a tree for my soldiers to throw spears at.’


	12. Chapter 12

Time shaded away quickly in the Sheriff’s study, snagging only when he asked Gorn a question. Gorn was accustomed to giving report, so he was succinct and clear and there was mercifully little need for interjection - indeed the most the Sheriff said was when Gorn handed over the list of evidence Butter had drawn up:

‘The Lady Theresa Laela!’ exclaimed Sheriff Macker, looking up at Gorn with a flush of surprise that quickly faded to a look of speculation. ‘The Laelas. I recall. A barony, was it? Landless. So it’s Lord Laela, now, isn’t it?’ 

The unfamiliar title rippled over Gorn in a cold wave. He had been Major, sir, for so long, and Tess had held her own titles lightly. It had not felt so wrong, when Butter said it. 

It struck him in that moment that he could not remember telling Butter Tess’s whole name.  
‘I suppose it is,’ he said to the Sheriff, and picked up his tale again, frowning.

***

By the time Gorn had given Sherriff Macker all of the information he asked for, the sun was leaching from the window. The afternoon was gone. A tap on the door flooded through Gorn’s body with shock; he realised that the force of his voice had narrowed the world down to himself and the Sheriff and the spectral Tess, rocking in her chair between them. He was holding himself tight between the brittle wooden armrests.

‘Take that stuff away, officer,’ barked the Sheriff. Gorn twisted in his chair to catch sight of a young soldier carrying a small household tinder box and a lit taper for the candles. ‘Go light up the withdrawing room,’ said Sheriff Macker, and rose. 

Gorn followed a moment later, limbs heavy and slow. Soldiers for housemaids was odd, no doubt about it, but he would not so much as flicker an eyebrow to convey disapprobation. It wasn’t the place of a guest.

Nevertheless, Sheriff Macker grimaced. He was shorter than Gorn had expected. He said, ‘We have unique household arrangements here.’ 

The officer stood aside to hold the door open for them.  
‘Thank you, murmured Gorn, and the officer blew out his taper, shut the study door behind them, and set off the way Gorn had come with Lady Shielda. 

Gorn turned down the dark corridor after him but the Sheriff coughed and beckoned in the opposite direction. Shielda, Gorn realised, had taken them up the servants’ stairs. 

‘The Kathrisi,’ Sherriff Macker continued, ‘have a damned difficult hierarchy. Took me months to crack it. Tight-knit tribes, won’t serve you if you aren’t part of their little group. The “Sheriff” role here is technically Governor of the region, so I came with an abridged garrison. Apparently, they count as my tribe,’ the Sheriff gave a little laugh and Gorn wasn’t sure if he was genuine or not. ‘It's all very quaint and primitive.’

Gorn, following the Sheriff down the stairs and into a warm drawing room, wanted to ask when they would be leaving to find the murderer, but something about this man’s manner muffled him and accentuated all his fatigue.

The Sheriff had listened to his story, leaning into the shadows of his armchair and staring calmly into Gorn’s face. This was good in that it did not come close to shattering the military stoicism that Gorn had drawn around himself, like Butter had shaken it. It meant, however, that in the moments when he found himself unable to talk, strangled by the threat of tears, the Sheriff had not looked away. His gaze had been cold, waiting for Gorn to recover with the patience of a schoolmaster waiting for quiet in his class. 

‘The house is staffed by soldiers, then?’ asked Gorn, because the Sheriff's polite manner seemed to forbid any discussion of what they left (rocking, still rocking) in that odd tucked away study.  
‘No - ’ replied the Sheriff, blandly, as the soldier from before finished lighting candelabra behind him and slipped from the room. ‘The Kathrisi can work here, but only because they serve my wife.’ 

The memory of Shielda’s face and sharp voice came back to Gorn. He felt his thoughts pulling together again. He straightened up, a soldier who happened to be in a drawing room.  
‘When do we set out?’ he asked.  
The Sheriff turned and languidly raised an eyebrow. ‘Set out?’  
‘Couple hours before dark yet,’ said Gorn, striding to the window and peering out into the woods beyond the beautiful gardens.  
‘I will deploy my men immediately, of course. In fact,’ he snapped his fingers and a footman, in green livery, stepped forward. ‘Tell Lady Macker I am ready to receive her,’ the Sheriff ordered, and then moved to pick up a decanter on a sideboard. ‘Drink?’  
‘I’d like to leave as soon as possible,’ insisted Gorn. He tried to restrain his growing annoyance.

The Sheriff spread his arms in a gesture that managed to be faintly surprised.  
‘You will join us for dinner, surely! I will send out three of the best Kathrisi squadrons - no one knows the woods better. But they keep their own ways, they don’t appreciate Valleran company. They will have a first report for you in the morning.’

Gorn straightened his stance and reminded himself not to hold onto his sword. ‘It would be best if I accompanied one of the squadrons.’  
The Sheriff stiffened and then relaxed, and again Gorn didn’t know if it was a real reaction or a tinny performance. ‘Well, my lord captain,’ Sheriff Macker said, ‘I certainly sympathise. When Shielda comes in, I’ll ask her if an exception might be made. She, of course, understands the Kathrisi protocol far better than I do.’ He finished pouring the drinks and stoppered the decanter. ‘An invaluable resource,’ he said, and Gorn accepted the goblet.

This withdrawing room was large, with tall diamond-paned windows and glowing rugs and tapestries. Gorn sat down, feeling everything - the amber drink, the polite murmuring of the Sheriff, the last gleams of sun on the wall - begin to retreat away from him, begin to become the setting of someone else’s story. He shouldn’t be here, in incongruous elegance and courteous nothings, reporting a murder. This was not his life. He did not know how he managed to answer the smooth non sequiturs of the Sheriff, but the conversation continued almost against his will.

At last the door opened and Shielda, leading three blonde Kathrisi warriors in scouting garb, came to stand in the middle of the room, before the fire. Gorn rose but realised too late that the Sheriff remained seated, leaning into his chair and swirling the brandy-mead in his cup. 

‘My darling!’ said the Sheriff.  
Shielda granted him a thin smile.  
‘Dea, and Morrow, and Thran,’ she said, introducing the warriors at attention. ‘Here for briefing.’  
‘Excellent,’ said the Sheriff, ‘how you anticipate my wishes, dear.’ His mellow loose-limbed sprawl was curiously at odds with the four straight-strung warriors before him. Shielda had changed into a green gown threaded with gold, and pinned up her hair, but she matched the three tall leather-clad scouts as if they were a set that she completed.

‘Scouts,’ Shielda said after a moment, ‘this is Lord Laela.’ Gorn smiled at her in relief, released from his awkward hovering, and nodded at the scouts.  
‘Yes, yes,’ said Sheriff Macker, leaning forward. ‘His sister’s murderer is loose in our woods. The murder took place yesterday twilight, in Needle Hollow, in the Lady Theresa’s own home, without sign of a struggle. Single knife blow for both woman and dog. Dea, I want you to go to the site at daybreak to investigate and to reassure the village that our security will not be breached again.’ 

From his position standing at right angles to both the Sheriff and the scouts, Gorn could see Shielda seize her left hand behind her back in an involuntary gesture. 

‘Thran,’ continued the Sheriff, ‘send two of your crew straight to the border - Milin, I think, and Fort Held. Alert them. Take the rest and go into the North Fell; Morrow, the South. Look for the man and the knife. Use the flets for a stake. Don’t come back without news.’ 

A moment floated between them, and then the scouts nodded and began to draw back.  
‘Sheriff,’ said Gorn, and the Sheriff turned to him and seemed to remember.  
‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘Shielda, darling, good Lord Laela has a request. He’s a trained soldier, you know, and he wants to accompany one of the squads. It’s his sister after all. Do you think we might make an exception, for him?’

For a moment Shielda looked so furious that Gorn’s hand dropped, out of habit more than anything, to his sword. But then she smoothed over and turned to meet Gorn’s eyes. 

She said, ‘I’m very sorry, Lord Laela, but that won’t be possible. We will bring every report straight to you.’

Everything around Gorn was slowly tightening, like a winch being twisted. He said, ‘Of course I will go under the command of the squadron leader. Is that acceptable?’ 

Shielda looked to her husband, but the Sheriff only lifted up his hands in a little open gesture, as if to say, It is not my decision. 

Her mouth pursed up into a knot. ‘We have found it best,’ she said, ‘to avoid an intermingling of Valleran and Kathrisi warriors. It is a very firm policy.’ She made a small gesture and the Kathrisi scouts filed out. She said, ‘You will have word before noon.’

Gorn understood that there was nothing to be done tonight. He only remembered that he was holding a goblet because it was slipping from his hand. He set it on the table, and turned back to find that the Sheriff and his lady were advancing into another room and must, he thought, have been speaking to him this whole time. 

The next room was a dining room, and there were servants in demure green garments standing at the walls, ready to serve, and one soldier to attend on the Sherriff. Right. An assignment, Gorn remembered, and sat down, determined to aquit himself with honour. 

‘ - such a pleasure to entertain you, Lord Laela,’ the Sheriff was saying, as Gorn focused his attention. ‘Tales of your heroism have reached us even in this corner of the world.’ He dipped his hand into the bowl of water that the Valleran soldier offered him.  
‘A shame,’ said Shielda’s cold voice, ‘that it is under such tragic circumstances.’ The Sheriff made a disgruntled movement like a ruffled bird, and so Gorn said:  
‘Your hospitality is very generous.’

He was offered his own bowl and he washed his hands. They were considerably dirtier than the Sheriff’s.  
‘Turmagil, now, that was a hard front!’ said the Sheriff knowledgeably. ‘Terrible stuff, I should think - a constant threat of breach.’  
‘Actually,’ Gorn said, ‘Turmagil was designed for siege. Breach was not so very likely.’ 

On the table a cover was removed from an enormous soup tureen. ‘I think,’ said Gorn meditatively as a hand appeared from over his shoulder to ladle into his bowl, ‘that starvation was probably the greatest threat.’ 

He waited for Lady Macker to pick up her spoon, and then began to eat.  
‘Right. Of course,’ said the Sheriff, and then rallied: ‘Strategic nightmare, trying to hold those burghs. I was shocked that they didn’t evacuate.’  
‘Were you?’ said Gorn, and he did not have the energy to resist the tide of dislike settling onto him. ‘I think it was brave - crafty and brave - of the Prince to hold them.’  
‘They certainly kept the Ashgurdians busy enough,’ said Lady Macker. She did not look at either of them. ‘Away from the border.’  
‘My lady has such a head for military strategy,’ said Sheriff Macker with more of that ambiguity of tone that had Gorn on his guard. ‘But, come, Lord Laela, - it’s not every day I have an honoured war hero at my table. There’s no need to be modest here. There was some danger - wasn’t there?’  
‘There is always danger in war,’ said Gorn. ‘The task of defending a circled mile of stone wall pales in comparison to maintaining miles of wooded border.’  
‘My lord wonders, I think, what particular act of heroism prompted the honour of Captaincy of the King’s Guard.’ Lady Laela kept her eyes on her food; Gorn could make nothing of her.

Well, and you thought this dinner couldn’t get worse, didn’t you, Gorn?  
He said, ‘There was a fire. There was a catapult lobbing balls of fire, and the barns caught. I was one of those who got the livestock out, but I was the only one stupid enough to catch fire myself.’ He set his spoon down. ‘This is very good soup,’ he said.

The servant came from behind to remove the soup bowl, and he looked up, and it was Butter. 

He swore, right there in that fine dining room. His heart jumped and he could feel his face staining - ‘Butter!’  
‘Lord Laela?’ she said, halting by his chair with his dirty dishes in her hands. They had given her a green dress to wear, a servant’s dress. 

Gorn stood up. ‘Why,’ he said, slow and deliberate, ‘is _my friend_ serving at table?’

There was a shocked silence. ‘Your hospitality,’ said Gorn, knowing that he was in the grip of a bad idea and not caring even a little, ‘has until now been so beautiful; forgive me if I am surprised to see you cannot afford the hire of enough servants to entertain your guests.’

The Sheriff rose. For a foolish moment Gorn though he was about to be hit, about to brawl above the dinner plates, and was desperately glad. 

Then the Sheriff said, ‘Lord Laela. You are tired and in grief. I will overlook this insult to my house because of that, and because of my respect for all you have done for our country. You have been away from Vallera for a long time, and perhaps you have forgotten that here, we do not break bread with our servants.’  
‘Butter,’ Gorn said doggedly, ‘is not a servant.‘  
Sheriff Macker raised his eyebrows. ‘Were you surprised, Lord Laela, to sit down to dinner without her?’

Gorn could feel heat pooling in his skin. No, he had not been. The truth was that he had not even wondered about her. The shame of it silenced him.

The Sheriff pressed his advantage. ‘If my lady informs me that she has forgiven you tomorrow morning, all of this will be forgotten. I bid you goodnight.’

Sheriff Macker left. Gorn had a moment of dazed anger, but pulled himself around to face the Lady. For Tess’s sake, and for Butter.  
‘I have dishonoured your table,’ he said, stiff with regret. ‘Will you forgive me?’

Lady Macker stood. ‘I am sure that Butter will explain to you just how this misunderstanding arose. As for me - you can’t join a Kathrisi squadron. But no one could prevent you traveling back to Needle Hollow for the funeral of your sister.’ 

She drew a golden chain with a small gold sun on it from beneath the collar of her dress, moved towards Gorn and looped it around his neck. ‘If you should be - intercepted - by Kathrisi scouts, on your way through the fells - show them this. Safe passage.’

Then she smiled, her first true smile, and it was full of sadness.


	13. Chapter 13

‘I’m sorry, Lord Laela,’ said Butter, as soon as the door to his room swung to behind them.

‘My fault,’ said Gorn, getting his bearings. It was a good room, thick drapes, handsome furnishings, candles burning. ‘You just did what you were told. I'm the one who's made a pig’s ear of this. God, but you gave me a fright!’ He gave an empty, tired chuckle, and began to unbuckle his swordbelt. 

His leather coat was hanging in the corner, and the world was gently focusing and unfocusing, and Butter wasn't laughing. Gorn stopped with his belt in his hands and said, ‘Butter. I hope I haven't made things hard for you. I'll speak to the Sheriff tomorrow, explain you're a guest - ’  
‘No!’ She exclaimed, then took his swordbelt from him and made her voice smooth as she coiled it and set it and the sword aside. ‘Don’t do that, master Gorn.’ 

Gorn pulled his trouser belt off in one smooth hiss of leather, and Butter flinched. 

He paused to look at her. ‘What - ’ 

He couldn’t bear it, he couldn’t, weariness crashed over him and he could not bear her fear. ‘Butter,’ he said, ‘what did I ever do to make you so afraid of me?’ 

Her shoulders hunched. She reached blindly towards him and tried to tug the belt from his hands, but he held on to it. ‘Butter,’ he said, ‘you know I’d not hurt you. Yesterday, you knew. Tell me what changed. Tell me.’  
She kept her eyes on the ground. Then she sighed. ‘I know you're a soldier,’ she said, ‘and you've killed people - and that's a, ah, that's a good thing, I'm not saying it isn't - but I guess it's just different to see it, that's all. But I'm grateful. Thank you.’

Gorn blinked down at her, shocked. ‘Who’ve I killed?’

Her gaze snapped up to his. ‘The man on the bridge. You just - you just tipped him over the side!’

She thought he’d killed that lout? Just for being mouthy? ‘Aw, I didn't kill him, Butter - water’s not far enough for him to die hitting it.’  
‘Oh! I thought - ’ she trailed off, looking embarrassed.   
‘He got rushed downstream, is all. It was misty, so maybe you couldn’t see how far he fell. I guess the “no mercy” thing was kind of dramatic.’  
‘No! It was - well, it was a nice touch,’ she said, but she moved away from him, turning her back. He watched helplessly as her shoulders tremored. 

He stretched out his hand but didn’t dare touch her. ‘Butter - what can I do? Don’t cry - ’

She swung around. She was not crying. Her hand was muffling laughter and her eyes were crinkling up her face. Gorn froze in numb relief. He felt like her world was moving three times faster than his was and he couldn’t keep up. Still, her laughter softened all the sharp edges inside of him.

‘ _Dramatic?_ ’ Butter’s voice was shaking. ‘You _threw_ him into a _river?_ ’ A yelp escaped her hand, and she bunched up her skirts in the other, still laughing. Gorn realised he was smiling. ‘“Who’ve I killed?” - ’ She said, in a breathless imitation of Gorn’s surprise.

Gorn chuckled. She gasped with laughter, hysterical, some distant part of Gorn’s mind supplied, hysterical after all the exhaustion of the day. He didn’t care. He liked it. 

Slowly she pulled herself together and wiped her eyes. ‘Sorry, master Gorn,’ she said, ‘I know you want to go to bed.’

‘No, I’m glad we cleared that up,’ he said, and she snorted and almost started laughing again.

‘Don’t set me off,’ she said.

Then she knelt down and began to untie his boots.

Gorn couldn’t move. He stared down at her dark head, frozen in place. In the candlelight her hair had an amber glint. This woman will be the death of me, he thought. This woman. 

She looked up at him with a crooked eyebrow. ‘Lift your foot,’ she said, like a woman might say, we’re already late, and he lifted his foot for her to ease off one boot, then the other, and then she stood up, and something occurred again to him.

‘Why shouldn’t I talk to the Sheriff about you?’

Butter stared at him. ‘They - Gorn. They think - ha - ’ she rubbed her hand over her face, then set the boots down by the bed and faced him. ‘They think I'm your - your mistress, your whore - that we're,’ she waved her hand in the air between them, meaning clear. Somehow her shyness was endearing. ‘It would dishonor you to flaunt it.’  
‘Good lord,’ said Gorn, taken aback. After all, he’d barely spoken to Butter under this roof. ‘Why on earth would they think that? Kathrisi aren't squeamish about men and women traveling together.’  
Butter blinked, and tilted her head. Again Gorn wanted to see her roll her eyes. ‘No,’ she said, ‘but first I tell them that I'm your wife, then that I'm your servant, then you - defend my honour at dinner.’

His wife. He had forgotten. Of a sudden the candlelit room with its four post bed took on a different quality, became private, became for a moment a hidden place where a family took refuge against the world.   
‘My wife,’ he said. Butter’s posture brittled and her eyes turned watchful and he realised he had said it out loud.  
‘I am sorry,’ she said carefully, ‘also, for that. I did not mean to shame you.’

Damn him and his fatigue-addled brain. Gorn smiled at her, and made sure to speak gently. ‘I’m very grateful to you for thinking up that trick. It got us here. Couldn’t’ve done it without you.’

She blinked again, rapidly, and smiled.‘Well, master Gorn, with your permission I’ll serve you. It’s expected. And I want to do it.’

He thought this was the first time she had outright expressed any desire. He said, ‘Alright.’ 

‘“Master Gorn” isn't quite right,’ she said, opening the chest at the foot of the bed and pulling towels out of it, ‘though it's what I like best to call you. Is ‘Lord Laela’ correct?’ She shut the chest and turned towards him, but she was looking up at the curtains, thinking. ‘“My lord”,’ she said, ‘I think that's proper.’ 

Gorn couldn't keep up with her, he was nearly asleep on his socked feet, and his muscles were shot through with a dull ache. Butter opened a door in the side of the room and made a welcoming gesture, so Gorn commanded himself to her side and looked in.  
‘What's this?’ He asked in surprise.  
‘It's a bath, my lord,’ she said, then: ‘You know: that round thing, full of water?’ Her voice was soft with hidden laughter. 

The world shuddered away. She was the only thing he could see. Gorn picked up her hand and kissed it, as he had done last night, skin to skin in the sleeping roll, as she had done to him on that very first night. ‘Thank you,’ he said. 

Her eyes were large and startled. ‘Do - do you want me to stay, my lord?’

That pulled him right up. Stay while he bathed. Stay in his bed. She’d do whatever he asked. She was in a foreign land, in a house of strangers, and at his mercy.  
Gorn said, ‘No.’ Then, making his best effort at gentle and cheerful: ‘Do you have a good place to sleep?’  
She nodded.   
‘Get to it, then. Been a long day.’ She nodded again, and curtseyed.

‘Butter,’ he said, when she was on the point of opening the door out into the corridor. ‘I am off early tomorrow. I will leave a note in here, explaining. Will you take it to the Sheriff? He will let you stay. Until I get back to you.’ 

She looked dismayed, then resigned. He hated that expression on her face. He’d wipe it off forever if it was up to him. ‘Yes, my lord.’  
‘You did well today,’ he said, because he would not let her leave looking like that. ‘I’m real glad to have you. Here, I mean. With me.’

He’d been hoping for the quirk of one of her little smiles, maybe another snort, so he wasn’t ready for the change that washed over her whole body like a wave, like a sudden light. She straightened right up, all her joints loosening, and lifted her chin in an imperious, regal gesture. Her mouth was a little pucker of determination, but her eyes were soft and steady. 

‘You won’t regret it,’ she said. Then she was gone.

***

The warm water soothed his aches and pains, but he did not linger in it. If he let himself relax he felt sure he’d fall asleep right there in the water, so he washed himself slowly and then left the water to stand until the footmen would empty it tomorrow. 

But once he was in bed, he found he could not stop thinking. Tess was there, with him, in the dark. Her face. The way she looked when she laughed. Grief surged up through him again, the deep sense of wrong, that he was living a reality that should not be. It pushed from under his skin, that itchy scratch of wrong, eating at him, as it had last night beside the fire before Butter had let him wrap himself around her. 

Butter, now. Finding Tess’s killer must be the first call on all Gorn’s energies, but in a cold, quiet clarity Gorn allowed himself to acknowledge that Tess did not need anything from him anymore. She was beyond help. Justice would not give her peace. It would only set his own mind to rest.

But Butter, now - she did need help. He'd help her.

Gorn shifted in the bed, buried his face in the pillow. He tried not to think it, not to think of the rocking chair - Dunnet and his bleeding eye - _Don’t you come in here, Gorn! No!_ \- Butter, Butter crouched in the dark, shrinking away from him outside his sister’s house. Butter’s tear tracks in the moonlight. Butter in the firelight, saying a thousand things with one helpless smile. His mouth in her hair. His hand on her breast.

Stop it. Don’t think it. 

But he thought: _Wife._

For a single moment peace sank over him like warmth. Butter and himself: no secrets, no fear. He could banish fear from her forever. He would stop her from ever being found by those who hunted her. No one would hurt her, ever. They would be a team, a refuge for one another in this world. There would be safety - and laughter, laughter like tonight except he’d be the one making her laugh - and stories -

Gorn pulled himself up. He must keep hold of himself. If she said yes it could only be for security, for a home and protection - these were the only things he could be sure of giving her, and he decided that she should have them. 

There were, scattered through Gorn's past, a handful of decisions which marked a complete turn in both his life and his thinking. He could give himself to a choice the way other people give themselves to a hope or a hatred, and hang his mind on it and break his life into a before and an after. He had made one such choice when he decided to keep Turmagil, back when his sides were smooth, and there in the dark, he made another. 

Wife or no, Butter would be safe. He would make it so.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!
> 
> I'm so sorry for the delay here - I don't have much of an excuse other than life. In the interest of, like, being realistic, I think I'll have to change the update schedule (aha) to every other Monday. 
> 
> I hope you've had the happiest of holidays and are enjoying your January! xxx

‘Butter-le! Wake up!’

Butter jolted all awake in a moment at the touch of a hand on her shoulder. It was dark but for one candle, which threw the face of the girl bending over her into a disarray of dark geometry, and shone in her pale hair. 

‘You woke me,’ Butter whispered dazedly. ‘Thank you.’  
‘Yes. I said that I would,’ whispered Gudrin. She was still in her white sleeping-gown. The first thing she had done was light the candle, and then she had woken Butter. Butter had not expected her to keep her promise. 

Softly, so as not to wake the other women sleeping in the row of beds, they dressed themselves in the green garb that the servants wore in this place. Gudrin silently offered her back for Butter to do up the tie on her corset, and then without a word did the same for Butter.

They crept out of the dormitory, with the candle, for it was still dark. The servants’ dining hall gleamed softy with reflected candlelight: Butter knew that there were no curtains on the downward-angled windows - so the darkness meant it was not yet dawn. Good. Perhaps she would catch Gorn before he left.

The kitchen glowed with embers of the always-burning hearth. ‘The small coldbox is there,’ said Gudrin, and her normal speaking voice made Butter start in all the silence. ‘Use the leftover cold cuts. He will be grateful for something to eat this afternoon. There is paper in the drawer to wrap them in, and candles here.’  
Butter said, ‘Thank you.’  
Gudrin nodded, face pale and almost friendly. ‘Do you have everything you need?’  
‘Yes,’ Butter said, then, ‘let me know which of your chores I can do today.’  
Gudrin chuckled. ‘Oh no - you will be kept busy enough, I think. I must be about. I will see you at breakfast.’

She picked up a basket and walked off, tinderbox quietly clattering. Gudrin was that low-ranking housemaid who woke before everyone else to light the fires. And, Butter thought as she ladled water into a large pewter kettle, who was saddled with the task of showing the foreign servant around. 

She had been kind, so far. Butter would see what could be done to repay her. 

But now: she navigated her way as quietly as possible around the foreign kitchen, trying to disturb nothing, cutting bread and cheese and meat and wrapping them in paper, snatching the kettle off of the fire before it began to whistle, brewing tea and toasting bread and putting all on a breakfast tray with a candle. 

She hesitated before Gorn’s door. If he is asleep, a knock will wake him. If he sleeps, I can leave the tray in his room and slip away. Servants do not knock; they are not seen or heard. Just go in, Butter. Go.

She knocked. 

‘Come in,’ said Gorn, and she opened the door, balancing the tray, just as he swung his sword belt around his waist. 

‘Good morning - ’ he said, surprised, but, Butter thought with relief, also pleased. She nodded to the paling sky outside.  
‘Just barely,’ she said, and set down the breakfast tray.

It was all candlelight in here still, so early; it was like she had stepped back into last night, suspended with him again. She didn’t know what to say.

Gorn stepped into the moment. ‘Thank you. This is kind.’ He picked up the cup of tea but did not sit down, rather faced her. She supposed she should leave - servants, after all, did not stay to chat - but he seemed like there was something on his mind. 

Clean, and rested at least a little, Gorn looked better - he stood tall without his pack, and she noticed the broadness of his shoulders; with the gentling of the lines of fatigue in his face, she was struck by the kindness in his eyes.

‘You have her talisman,’ she said abruptly, ‘the necklace Lady Macker gave you?’

But he did not seem to think her concern absurd. He touched his collarbone. ‘I do,’ he said.   
‘I don’t know why the Sheriff did not give something to you,’ she said, troubled. ‘Surely he could have offered a right of way.’  
‘Yes,’ said Gorn, and frowned. ‘There is an oddness here, Butter. Have you noticed it belowstairs?’   
She nodded. ‘No one is allowed to speak Kathrisi, in the whole building. And the soldiers, the Vallerans - they do not speak to the Kathrisi women. Almost as though they were afraid to.’  
Gorn chuckled. ‘Well, if they're all like the Lady Macker, I don't blame them.’  
‘By all rights, she should be the one to resent you, if you don't mind me saying so, my lord,’ said Butter slowly, ‘but she has not frustrated you the way her lord has.’   
Gorn shrugged. ‘It did not take much to frustrate me, last night. And after all it may simply be between the two them, their own marriage. We don't know what is truly going on.’ 

He paused, turning the clay mug around and around in his hand. ‘I don't like leaving you in the midst of it, whatever it is. A strange household. How have they treated you?’ 

She shouldn't have come. She was so foolish to think that she could see Gorn, and be with him, and not burden him. ‘Don't worry about me,’ she said, and he looked wryly at her, as if to say, we have played this game before. ‘Truly,’ she said, ‘You don't have to worry. They’re generous. Courteous. They won't find out about me.’

He was still frowning, and looked like to say more, so she said, ‘You had a note, for me to take to the Sheriff?’  
‘Yes,’ he said, and picked it up from beside the breakfast tray. ‘Here. It explains where I've gone. Also thanks him and his lady for their hospitality in hosting my housekeeper.’ He let out a long breath, ‘Seemed the best thing to call you. I'll be back day after tomorrow, unless I pick up the trail. Then, you’ll get word. I asked him,’ he gestured to the envelope in her hand, ‘to make sure to tell you the news.’ 

Butter tucked into a pocket in the apron. ‘You've thought of everything,’ she said.  
‘I’ll make sure you're alright, Butter,’ he said earnestly. ‘It’s a tangle, but I'll get you out of it.’ 

‘Right,’ she said, unable to bear it, ‘but only if you get out of this room, first. I’m stopping you from eating your breakfast, aren’t I? I’ll go. Good hunting, my lord.’

She curtsied, never clumsy no matter what whirlwind was inside of her, and fairly ran from the room.

***  
Why did he take such pains to reassure her? Did he think she would make trouble for him if he didn’t? He was a kind man, that was sure, but she was just some piece of charity he had saddled himself with and not been able to get rid of. It was a thought she could almost smile at, because how like Gorn, who was so sharp at some things but so desperately in the dark about most everything else. How like him and his kind helpless easygoing smile. 

It was dangerous to think like that, though, Butter reminded herself as she made her way back down to the kitchens. She remembered what he had been like beside her when they had travelled through the night. Fierce, efficient, furious - he was a soldier, a commander, a master, and she must never take anything for granted. That was how you got careless, and careless slaves got killed. 

Not a slave, not a slave, not a slave, she reminded herself, pausing for a moment before the servant’s stairs. She thought, I’m a housekeeper. I’m a guest. I must remember. She gathered up all her courage and plunged down. 

The fire was blazing and the kitchen hall buzzed with conversation. 

‘Butter-le!’ It was Gudrin, come clanging back with her basket of firemaking. ‘There you are! Come change with me, you can wear my other shift.’

Butter allowed herself to be swept back into the maids’ dormitory, where some of the women she had met yesterday were pulling on plain rough-spun garments. She stood by while Gudrin flung up the lid of the chest at the foot of her bed and pulled out a pile of undyed fabric. ‘There!’ she said, tossing them at Butter. ‘They are about your size.’ She began to loosen the ties of the dress at her neck. 

‘Are we - ’ Butter gingerly shook out the folds; it was a tunic and loose leggings. ‘ - Bleaching something?’

Gudrin looked up and snorted. ‘They are awful, are they not?’ She wrinkled her nose at the clothes and smiled at Butter. It took too long for Butter, surprised but pleased, to smile back.

Taking her cue from that morning, Butter moved to help untie Gudrin’s bodice, and then she asked: ‘What are we doing?’

‘Oh,’ said Gudrin, throwing off her dress, ‘did I not explain? You must forgive me! It is morning training. We go through our forms, before the Sher - before breakfast.’ She pulled her shift over her head. Butter began to undress, wondering what kind of training could possibly require these odd clothes. Perhaps it was serving at table, and they didn't want to stain anything? She didn’t like to ask another question.

When the staff spilled out from the main dining hall, up stone steps into a stamped earth courtyard that led into the kitchen garden, it became clear. They fell into loose knots of people down one side, men and women all mingled and chatting, and Lady Macker, dressed the same as everyone else but with leather gauntlets, her long hair swinging in a plait behind her, came before them.   
‘Today,’ she said, ‘we will practise the defence forms for single assault. Groups of three.’ 

Gudrin beckoned a small woman forward as groups formed - ‘Mahala - this is Butter-lesk. Butter, this is Mahala. She makes the best arrows in the North Fells.’  
‘Also, I am a housemaid,’ said Mahala cheerfully. ‘This is the maneuver where you stomp - “stomp” is right, isn’t it? - On the inside of the foot - ’

And before Butter knew what was happening, she was learning what to do if someone grasped you from behind, if someone go hold of both your wrists or of your neck, how to break a hand or dislocate a shoulder. Mahala and Gudrun were whip-quick and slippery, but very patient.  
‘Very good, Butter-le!’  
‘Your turn,’ panted Butter, and Gudrin turned around so that Butter could grasp her shoulder, as the exercise demanded. Butter reached out, but just as her fingers brushed Gudrin the Kathrisi woman spun, seizing Butter’s hand and bearing down at a breaking angle. Pain shot up Butter’s arm and down her ribs as she was wrenched sideways, and she struck out with her other arm to free herself. 

‘Ah!’

Bewilderingly, Butter was free again, heaving her breaths and blinking. What had happened? 

‘Clever!’ It was the small blonde woman. Mahala. Kathrisi, she was with the Kathrisi, and Gudrin - Gudrin had a hand clapped to her face. 

Panic pushed her forward - ‘Gudrin - have I hurt you?’  
‘Give me one moment - ’ said Gudrin in a tight voice, then took her hand away, blinking. Butter had jabbed her in the eye. She felt the tension take her every muscle. Would they beat her here and now, she wondered, or would they make Gorn do it when he got back? She hoped, she hoped it would be now - 

But then Gudrin laughed. ‘By the lost princess, that was bold! It would not have occured to me! Show us again, Butter-le?’  
‘Junith,’ called Mahala ‘come and look at this!’ And then a small crowd was gathering. 

She wasn’t in trouble, Butter realised, fear-clogged brain catching up. Gudrin turned and chucked her shoulder invitingly. ‘Maybe not right in the eye this time, though, ay?’

***  
After, when they were splashing their faces with water at the stable pump, Butter said,  
‘What does ‘lesk’ mean? You said, ‘Butter-lesk?’

Gudrin shook her head like a small neat dog, and water sprayed everywhere. ‘I can tell her that can’t I, Mahala? Titles are allowed to be known?’ Mahala nodded, so she continued. ‘It’s like, “madam”, I think.’  
‘Oh,’ said Butter, who had known that all along, of course, and was merely leading up to her real question: ‘And “-le”? You say it after my name, what does that mean?’  
‘Oh, that is like - what is it like, in your language?’ Gudrin towelled her hair with swift jerky movements as she considered. She spoke with a lightness, a precision, like the small stepping of birds’ feet, and Butter liked the way ‘Butter-le’ sounded in her mouth. 

‘I think it must be like “dear”,’ said Gudrin, and tossed her the towel.


	15. Chapter 15

It was laundry day, as it happened, and so before breakfast Gudrin gathered her fire-making kit again and set off out the back to light the fires which would warm vats full of water. 

After breakfast, Butter had said, ‘I have a letter, from my master to the Sheriff,’ and Gudrin had said, more and more cheerful now that she had eaten:  
‘Yes - There is Private Delfleur, who takes him his breakfast tray.’ 

This was a Valleran soldier, a young man of the kind that would have, in the shabbier of the brothels where Butter had worked, made a stir. He paused and warily regarded them without saying anything. Butter remembered that the Vallerans never spoke to the women. ‘Delfleur,’ said Gudrin, with enough nonchalance of tone that Butter knew she was faking it, ‘Butter-lesk can take the tray up today, she has a letter t deliver. You have been up to his study, yes? He takes it there. Come back down here after. You can teach us your Ashgurdian washing songs!’ 

Delfleur had relaxed his stance as Gudrin trotted away, but hadn’t spoken, had only given her a curious look and pointed to the tray on the sideboard. And so Butter was left balancing it, back on those eerily muffled backstairs that, only yesterday, she had climbed with Lady Macker and Gorn. It was ridiculous to wish that he was there with her. She did not wish it. She did not long for the quiet simplicity of walking beside him in a wood. It was absurd to miss him. 

She was absurd.

Butter listened at the Sheriff’s door and did not hear voices, and so she slipped in. He was bent over some paper, still in a dressing gown. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of her but said nothing.

She put the tray down on a side table, then smoothed down her green skirt. ‘Shall I make the tea, my lord?’

‘No,’ he said, and swept his papers to one side. ‘Put the tray here, then.’

She obeyed, and said, standing in front of his desk, ‘There is a letter from Lord Laela for you, my lord.’  
‘Yes, I see that. Stay while I read it.’

She moved to stand against a bookshelf, and allowed herself the pleasure of touching the leather book-spines with a hand held behind her back. The Sheriff ate with one hand and read something held in the other, then another something, then, at last, he read Gorn’s letter.

He put down his fork. ‘Come here,’ he said, gesturing to beside his chair. She stood before him and endured his scrutiny.

‘That’s a bruise,’ he said, ‘fading there, on your cheek. Lord Laela give that to you?’  
‘No, my lord,’ she said coldly. 

He leaned back into his chair, becoming, if it were possible, even more composed now that he could see her anger. ‘His protection must not be worth much, then. But perhaps you have not been with him for long.’ 

He was trying to get information out of her, by making her angry, she realised. It would not work. ‘We encountered ruffians, my lord,’ she said, quite calm, ‘on one of your bridges. An oversight I am sure you have already given commands to rectify.’

There. She was lying without even lying, and insulting him without insulting him. She wished Gorn was here to see and be proud, then quickly thought how awful it would be for him to think her cunning.

The Sheriff pursed his lips, nettled, and began to cut at the meat on his plate. ‘It’s not quite so simple, girl. We can’t exactly have Kathrisi arresting Vallerans, now can we?’  
‘I hope,’ said Butter, rather shocked but at her iciest, ‘that if it was a Valleran who murdered my master’s sister, you might reconsider that policy.’ 

His head jerked up. ‘You’re very bold, my girl.’ He squinted his small eyes up at her. ‘Very bold, very well-spoken, and not out of Ashgurd, by your accent. I do wonder where Lord Laela picked you up.’ 

Dread pooled in Butter’s stomach. She took a step back. ‘I am sure he would be happy to tell you the story, my lord. And I am sorry if I have caused you any offense.’ 

‘That necklace you have on,’ he said, ‘it’s not uniform protocol. Take it off.’ 

Her hand flew to her neck and traced the ribbon there. ‘The knot is fast, my lord,’ she said, cold fear washing up and down her. ‘I have tried to untie it, and I can’t.’

There was a small knife on his desk, one for opening letters. He held it out to her. 

She could refuse, but she had already come too close to shaming Gorn. She could not let him down, embarrass him, provoke more questions. And after all, it did not have to mean anything. This man only wanted a way to assert his power over her, and once he had done it he would forget the whole matter. She was prepared, after all, to do worse things for Gorn’s sake. She had sat alone in a house with Lady Theresa’s corpse for him, had gone to her knees in an inn for him. What was this small risk? 

She cut the ribbon, and stuffed it into her pocket. She made herself meet the Sheriff’s eyes. He was looking at her neck. ‘If I asked you your history,’ he said musingly, ‘I wonder if you would tell me.’ 

Butter held her peace. She had ten thousand lies at her fingertips. She resisted the urge to toss the letter opener onto his desk, and put it back carefully. 

The Sheriff pushed his tray away from him with a little fussy movement. ‘Take this away. I am quite finished with you.’

She picked it up, and curtsied, and made for the door.

‘Stop,’ he said, but he said it in Kathrisi. She kept moving. ‘I said, stop, girl,’ he said, again in Kathrisi, and Butter paused and turned back.

‘My lord?’ she inquired blankly in her own language, ‘I didn’t quite catch - ’  
‘Go,’ he said, back in their native tongue, and laughed - at her, or at himself, she wasn’t sure. She closed the door behind her and gave herself one moment, panting, to sag against it. 

***  
The kitchen and servants’ hall was relatively quiet by the time she got down to it. There was a Valleran soldier polishing a row of boots in one corner, humming, and another one - Delfleur - chopping a great pile of orange-fleshed potatoes with loud whacks of the knife on one side of the kitchen, and as Butter came in a Kathrisi woman emerged from the women's dormitory lugging a pile of bedding through to climb the steps out to the courtyard, where the talk and singing of laundry day could be faintly heard. 

In the kitchen proper was Audun. He was tall and large-handed, and though he was quiet - almost subdued in his manner - he, Butter had quickly discerned, was first in command downstairs. Officially, he was the head cook, but in the way even the Valleran soldiers spoke with deference to him Butter thought he ran most of the workings of the place. He was the only Kathrisi who had not come out into the dawn for morning training.

Butter hoped she could dispose of the tray without disturbing him, but as soon as he caught sight of her he gave her a nod. ‘Hild has just finished with this morning’s dishes,’ he said, ‘So perhaps the easiest thing to do is to go draw some of the warm clothes-water to wash that up.’  
‘Yes, sir,’ said Butter, surprised.

Outside, the crackling of fires and the gush of water was the backdrop for an at first bewildering rhythm of activity. Vats were set up over fires, and water was being poured into them one bucket at a time, and washing-tables were being set up, and piles of linen were being sorted - ‘Ah, Butter-le!’ It was Gudrin; Butter recognised her with a rush of relief. ‘You want water? Use that vat, it’s starting to warm.’

Butter dipped the bucket she had brought in to the boiling water - careful of the fire, and the steam - and Gudrin helped her carry it in. ‘I must just get the lye - ’ she said, and began to rummage in a cupboard beneath the sink where Butter started to wash up the Sheriff’s breakfast. 

The Valleran soldier polishing the boots was humming a song Butter knew. Audun was on the other side of the kitchen, wrestling easily with some kind of dough. Butter felt her tension begin to unwind.

Then Lady Macker, dressed as she had been when Butter met her yesterday, in plain garments, the kind one wore under armour, came into the kitchen. ‘Audun-lesk,’ she said.

The boot polishing soldier stopped humming. Private Delfleur, who was still chopping potatoes, paused in his knifework and then continued with much less slamming than before. ‘Lady Macker,’ said Audun. ‘Good morning.’  
Lady Macker, who Butter could just see out of the corner of her eye, crossed her arms. ‘Will you come outside and speak with me, please?’ 

Gudrin, who had by now certainly found her lye, snatched up a cloth and began drying the dishes Butter had washed. She kept her head down and set the dishes down softly.  
Audun said, ‘I fear that you find me at a busy time, my lady. I cannot leave this dough just now.’  
Lady Macker said, ‘Bollocks.’ Butter fumbled the soap. ‘Fine. We’ll have it out here. Will you forgive me?’  
‘Yes,’ Auden said immediately. He sounded surprised. Then he said, ‘But it must not ever - ’  
‘I know, I know,’ she cut him off, ‘Never again. Any of it. I promise you.’

There was a pause in which no one in the kitchen breathed. 

Lady Macker said, much lower, ‘I am sorry for it.’  
Audun said, ‘I know.’ Then, altogether differently: ‘You will bring me a food plan soon, Ladylady? I cannot keep making things up.’  
Lady Macker almost matched his tone. ‘Yes. This afternoon. I will come again.’ Then she turned around and went back up the stairs.

Butter pulled out the stopper in the sink and the water drained with a loud slurp. Audun laughed. ‘Oh very good, all of you,’ he said. ‘Benison, you should have kept on with your song. That was a sure give away. But the rest of you, very good. Private Delfleur, set those to bake.’

Gudrin seized her jar of lye in one hand and Butter’s wrist in the other and ran back outside.

‘It’s all right!’ She called out in Kathrisi to the whole courtyard. Mahala looked up, and the other men and women paused their tasks and turned towards Gudrin - 

She was excited; she let go of Butter and spread her arms wide. ‘The mami and the papi have made their peace,’ she announced.

One of the men tending the fire straightened up and whooped. ‘Finally!’ He said, and then people were laughing and cheering and asking her questions.  
‘Who spoke first - ?’  
‘Just there, out in the open?’  
‘Did he call her _Ladylady_?’  
‘Yes, he did!’ said Gudrin triumphantly. There were several noises of satisfied appreciation. 

Butter tried her hardest to look politely bemused, and not as if she understood a word. Gudrin fielded a few more questions, and then said, ‘But here, I have the lye,’ and everyone seemed to realise what they ought to be doing. They resumed their tasks with a palpable lightening in the air. Butter had never seen a housemaid speak with such boldness to her household. 

Gudrin turned back to her. ‘You must forgive us for that rudeness,’ she said, switching back to Butter’s dialect. ‘Lady Macker and Audun are old friends, but the last few weeks they have - not been friendly.’ She touched Butter’s shoulder and leaned in: ‘It’s been awful,’ she said, ‘But now they are all right again. We are happy.’  
‘And,’ said Butter, who could not imagine being so invested in another person’s friendship, ‘everyone knows? Everyone watches them?’  
Gudrin chuckled, ‘You can’t get away from the eyes of your family,’ she said. 

Sure you can’t, thought Butter.

‘If Lord Laela fell out with his lady, would you not be pleased when there was peace again?’ said Gudrin, and passed Butter a washing-stick. She beckoned Butter over to the cauldrons where sheets were soaking. 

If Gorn had a lady - the thought rankled. It had not occurred to her that he would ever marry - or perhaps, that he had been married, once. She would not think about it, it was none of her business. 

Gudrin laughed and the abruptness of it forced Butter’s eyes up to meet hers. ‘Oh ho! You would perhaps, not be so pleased?’ She was smiling, cheeky, and would plainly be able to see the hot embarrassment on Butter’s cheeks. 

‘What? I - ‘ she said in confusion, then drew herself up and plunged her long stick into a vat, and began to stir and move the cloth as it boiled. ‘I suppose, I would be glad,’ said Butter, trying to recover some dignity. ‘But - if he fell out with his cook - ’  
‘Ah, but that is the thing,’ said Gudrin, choosing inexplicably to ignore Butter’s discomfort and hefting the heavy sheets with considerably more strength than Butter had, ‘I was rude before - to speak Kathrisi, so I will explain it all to you: - ’ 

She was talking rather fast, and had already apologized for speaking Kathrisi - she was abashed for embarrassing Butter. How very strange. 

Butter had never come across people like the ones here, before. The brothels had been full of misery and envy and anger, and before that - well. 

She would not think about before. Her neck, bare and vulnerable without its ribbon, would keep her cautious. If she wanted to live, she could not think of it.


	16. Chapter 16

‘Before Lady Macker was married, she was our one and Audun was our two.’ 

This meant nothing to Butter, and Gurdin caught sight of her blank face. She laughed, ‘I am not helpful, am I? It is always the way. Kathrisi and Valleran do not understand one another. Let me try again,’ 

The Kathrisi man who had whooped, before, came up to Butter’s vat and prodded at her fire, piling more wood onto it. He smiled at them, quite free and open, before he turned away. ‘Do you know why we are called _Kathrisi_?’ asked Gudrin. 

Butter thought, actually, that she might know - but the bell was ringing in the wrong part of her brain, the part she must not use, and so she ignored it. ‘Tell me,’ she said.  
‘It is because to us, the most important thing is not your parents’ name or where you were born, it is your kathri. As a young person, you join a kathri to be trained - so if you want to learn, I don’t know, how to build a house - you go and live with the people who build houses. Or to be a scout, you go and you live with scouts.’  
‘So,’ said Butter, smiling, ‘did you go and live with housemaids?’

Gudrin laughed again. She kept doing that, but it didn’t stop surprising Butter. ‘Did you know, Butter-le, I am the third ever housemaid in these Fells? We didn’t have any, until the Sheriff came!’ She blew some hair out of her face, ‘He came, years ago, during the war. The old one didn’t care much, he lived outside the woods and sent messages, but Sheriff Macker, he moved in and tried to organize all of the protectorate kathris - you know, warriors and scouts and things, - into regiments and squads - Valleran ways. I was just in the middle of my training at the time, and what would have happened to me, if Shielda and Thar and Audun and all of my kathri had left, to go be an army?’

Butter kept her eyes on the sheets, creasing and undulating in the vat. ‘What is it that your kathri did, then? What were you training to be?’  
‘Still training,’ corrected Gudrin, ‘I do not spend every day washing linen. Our kathri makes decisions for the protectorate. We are strategists, and warriors. We only work in the house because Sheriff Macker - well, because Lady Macker married.’

Butter kept quiet, thinking it over. Sometimes it was best to ask a small question, but this was a moment, she thought, when any word from her would stop the flow of information. 

A few turns of the washing in the vat, and Gudrin spoke again. ‘There was a lot of - misunderstanding, in those days. Between the Kathrisi and the Vallerans. But, when Sheilda married the Sheriff there couldn’t be fighting. Because now he was Kathrisi. So you see,’ she said, ‘Lady Macker was our kathri’s one - the first person we went to in an emergency. Before. And Audun was our two.’

‘Yes, I see,’ said Butter. It explained a lot. An oddness, Gorn had said, well - yes. The whole household was a symbol of fraught political unity. She wondered if the marriage had been passed by bill to ratify the settlements, or if the political ramifications had been informal - it could likely be settled retrospectively by special dispensation from the king, which would probably be better for the Kathrisi in the long run, to have their rights enshrined in Valleran law - she could not remember a law passed about governance of the fells in the last fifty years, at least - 

Shut up, Butter told her brain. Shut up shut up shut up. Think about here, now. You must keep away from the Sheriff. You must show more deference to Audun, he’s more important than you thought. You must -  
She said, ‘Thank you for explaining to me, Gudrin-lesk.’  
‘Of course, said Gudrin ‘It must all be very confusing for you! I remember how strange it was for me, coming to this house and having half of us downstairs and half upstairs, and sleeping all women together! But you are doing well.’

These words splashed over Butter like water from her boiling vat. She had no response. How she liked Gudrin, her free and generous use of delicately pronounced words, her laughter and easy, matter-of-fact manner. 

Gorn, come back, she thought, before I ruin this. I can’t keep up this facade. I’m going to ruin it, for you and for me. Come back, Gorn, come take me away.

***  
Again, Gorn had barely enough to realise that he was not alone before there was an arrow aimed at his throat. But this time Gorn smiled. He sank to his knees on the dirt and pulled Lady Macker’s token from beneath his shirt. 

The Kathrisi warrior lowered her bow. Her face and the faces of the rest of the squad were blurred with confusion. For a moment the wind in the trees was the only sound. Then the leader strode forward, pulled Gorn to his feet, and held out her hand. 

He shook it.

***  
Thunk, thunk, thunk - wet clothes slapped down onto wooden tables and formed the beat of some quite saucy washing songs. Laundry day was exhausting, Butter had discovered, but cheerful. Everyone pitched in to stir the vats of bed linen and to knead and beat the dirt out of clothes on the washing tables, singing and chatting to pass the time.

She had dreaded the moment when they would ask her to sing an Ashgurd washing song. The only songs with the right kind of beat that she knew would be certainly unfit for the ears of young noblewomen, elbow deep in suds as they may be. For this, Butter had decided, would be the best way to treat them - she had reflected that a kathri of military strategists, whose leader could bring peace to the whole region by her marriage, was as close an equivalent to Valleran nobility as the Kathrisi were likely to have. 

So they were noblewomen forced to play-act as servants, but as she soon discovered, they were noblewomen with very dirty mouths. Their own ‘washing songs’ seemed only to deserve the name because they so often involved people taking off their clothes. She ended up teaching them ‘Knobbly John’ and the ‘The Maid with the Glittering Eye’ to great enjoyment all round. 

So far, she thought, eating a kind of potato cake - only it was orange and faintly sweet - so good. In a group, it seemed, she could hold her own without putting Gorn to shame, even if she couldn’t quite decipher the group dynamics just yet. These Kathrisi hid their rivalries well. She had not heard one snipping remark yet, but reflected that there must be nuances her rusty Kathrisi could not pick up.

They ate a quick, cold lunch, eager to get the work done and the clothes drying before dark. Butter was helping Mahala spread the sheets to dry over the hedges in the outer garden when a Kathrisi guard led a young Valleran messenger up the path and into the house.  
‘We have not seen him here before,’ said Mahala, ‘they only let some messengers into the Fells to deliver to us.’ She twitched the sheet to lie even, and said, meditatively, ‘He is younger than the others.’

He, it turned out, was at their dinner. He slipped in and took a place down the end of the table where the women tended to sit. By the time the other Vallerans noticed, they were all sitting down and it was too late for him to be gathered back where he belonged. 

Butter watched him out of habit, checking his eyes and his hands and the way he moved. He was older than she, and had a clean shaven, plain-looking kind of face. Not a danger, she thought, surreptitiously taking in his slow and easy movements. Not unless he stirs up anger among the soldiers.

This did not seem so very unlikely, for in spite of his inoffensive manner the first thing he did was to break the great taboo and speak to a Kathrisi woman.  
‘So, is all I hear of the Kathrisi true, then?’ he asked, turning to Mahala and smiling, ‘That all the women are warriors to be feared?’  
She stared at him for a moment, quite taken by surprise. ‘Not - not all of us.’  
‘But you,’ he said eagerly, ‘I think you would best me?’  
‘In an archery competition, maybe,’ she said, rallying herself under all this attention.  
‘Archery! Really?’ His face, which Butter had thought forgettable, took on a different aspect with the warmth of his expression. Mahala was not immune to it. ‘When did you begin to learn?’ he asked, and she said,  
‘I was seven years old, I think, when I started practice on a child’s bow.’  
His eyes went wide and round. ‘Seven! That’s - amazing.’  
‘What is your weapon of choice?’ asked Mahala, beginning to unbend.  
‘Oh,’ he said, looking down, ‘I am only a messenger. I haven’t been trained or anything. Fists, I suppose.’ He looked up and hesitated, ‘But perhaps you could show me your bow?’

Butter, who had been listening to this conversation with one ear like the rest of the table, met eyes with Gudrin. They smiled at one another, knowingly. Those two, Butter thought, were unlikely to speak to anyone else for the rest of the evening. It was sweet, she told herself, and did not examine why it made her sad.

***

‘Here,’ said Gudrin, alone in the dormitory with Butter. ‘You will want something fresh to sleep in.’  
Butter looked doubtfully at the night shift she held out. ‘Is it yours?’  
‘Yes,’ said Gudrin. ‘But I have spare. Unless the whole day we spent wishing every single garment that has ever been made was a dream.’ She tossed her night shift at Butter and collapsed on the bed. ‘Please tell me it was not a dream,’ she groaned. ‘I do not think I could bear doing it all again tomorrow.’  
‘Just feel you arms,’ said Butter, ‘I don’t think you could dream the ache.’  
Gudrin rolled over to be face-up on the bed and gazed at the ceiling. ‘I feel nothing right now. But they will ache tomorrow.’  
Of course; Gudrin was strong. Butter’s own arms protested even the motion it took to unlace her shoes. She pulled them off with a sigh. 

Gudrin put out her hand and arrested her movement. ‘Butter-le,’ she said. She was sitting up and staring, shocked, at Butter’s feet. ‘What - what happened to you?’

For a moment Butter didn’t even know what she was talking about. Flogging the sole of the foot was a common way to punish whores; there had been a couple of girls with scars like the ones Eyes had given her in every brothel she’d ever worked.

But this wasn’t a brothel.

Butter jerked her foot down to the floor, cold panic and hot shame competing for room in her stomach. She stopped herself from snarling something bitter; she couldn’t make this worse, but she didn’t know what to say to make it better. 

There was an excruciating silence. 

Then Gudrin said, ‘Forgive me.’ 

Butter looked up but couldn’t quite meet Gudrin’s eyes; she settled for the collar of her night shift. ‘No, really, please forgive me,’ Gudrin continued. ‘I am very rude. I never should have asked.’  
‘Of - course,’ said Butter, utterly off balance.  
‘Did,’ Gudrin paused, then said all in a rush, ‘did Lord Laela do it?’  
Butter’s eyes flew up to her face. ‘No! He wouldn’t ever - it was. It was well before he - it was before I became his housekeeper.’  
‘Before...’ said Gurdin slowly. Butter could barely keep still.  
‘A long time ago,’ she said desperately.  
Gudrin said, ‘Does it hurt? To - to walk?’  
‘No,’ said Butter, ‘It’s quite healed.’  
‘How - ’ but Gudrin was interrupted, because Mahala at that moment came in. She was glowing. Butter sagged in relief that Gudrin had not been able to ask her question, and then stood up and began to undress as if nothing had happened.

‘So!’ said Gudrin, turning her attention to Mahala. ‘He is leaving, then? What did he say to you?’  
But Mahala sat down on Gudrin’s bed, beaming. ‘He is not leaving. The letter he brought to the Sheriff requests a report that is not ready yet, so the Sheriff gave him leave to stay until he has written it. I am seeing him tomorrow morning, very early!’ She clutched a pillow to her chest, excited and happy and proud.

It was too much for Butter, who after a long day did not care to interpret the feelings which drove her to dive into the bed and cover her head.

***  
Gorn lay between the steady breaths of the Kathrisi warriors who slept beside him. He was pressed in a throng of warm bodies, lying tucked one into another on a wooden flet high in a tree. It had been a day of long travel without much reward, and he was tired, but he could not sleep.

The marriage idea had grown in his mind. Anger and grief must consume his thoughts, but his choice echoed through him still, making him remember, making him notice. And there she was, when he closed his eyes, stealing lowered glances of him when he looked away. He imagined Butter’s raucous laugh on the other side of a fire, a hearth fire. He thought of his stew between them on a table, and of receiving her token before his men - a handkerchief he had given her, perhaps, or a ribbon - yes, she liked ribbon, she wore one around her neck - he would give her a dozen ribbons, a rainbow in her drawer. 

Between sleep and waking, he remembered her mouth on his thigh or his hands on her chest. He saw her knelt before him and, before he could stop himself, saw himself kneeling before her, raising her shift - and oh god, never. He would kiss her forehead in a corridor every night, and she would go to one bed and he to another, because if there was one thing she would not be allowed to do as his wife it was pay.


End file.
